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‘I don’t digest food properly now’: The all-consuming pressure of managing a football club

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‘I don’t digest food properly now’: The all-consuming pressure of managing a football club

Pep Guardiola’s list of symptoms is long and unsettling. He has trouble sleeping. He can only take light meals in the evening. On some days, he does not eat at all. He finds it difficult to read because his mind keeps wandering. He feels, at times, intensely lonely. Things can get so bad that they begin to take on a physical form: bouts of back pain, breakouts on his skin. 

They are not isolated to moments like the one in which the Manchester City manager finds himself trapped, when his team are locked in a tailspin he has spent the better part of two months trying and failing to halt. By his own admission, he is always like that. Guardiola cannot sleep, or eat, or relax even when things are going well at work.

Manel Estiarte, perhaps Guardiola’s most trusted confidant, used to call it the “Law of 32 minutes”. Estiarte had spent enough time with Guardiola to calculate precisely how long his friend might last talking about another subject — literally any other subject — before his mind wandered back to football. 

That image has long since been folded into Guardiola’s mythology. He is the obsessional genius, his brain forever fizzing and whirring, a synapse permanently set to fire. His teams at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and then City represent his ideas made flesh, given perfect form. His brilliance has been constrained only by the limits of his imagination.

The cost of that dedication, though, has been laid bare over the last couple of months. As City’s form has slumped, Guardiola has given at least two unusually bleak interviews: first to the Spanish chef Dani Garcia, and then to his former team-mate, and longstanding friend, Luca Toni on Prime Video Sport. He told the former of the “loneliness of the football manager”, and how he found that — in defeat — there is “no consolation” once “you close that bedroom door and turn off the light”. 

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To Toni, meanwhile, he detailed the impact on his health: the skin problem he has been dealing with for “two (or) three years”, the problems with sleeping and eating. “I don’t digest food properly now,” he said, as if the metabolic shift is permanent. Sometimes, he said, he “loses his mind”.


Guardiola during Manchester City’s 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace this month (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

That he was so matter-of-fact about it — that he could insist he was “fine” just a few days later — may well be because none of it is new, not really. He struggled to sleep in his final year at Barcelona. In 2019, when City beat Liverpool to the Premier League title, he had long since stopped eating on matchdays. He said in 2018 while speaking at the University of Liverpool that he could not read books to relax because “I start reading and before I know it I am reading about Jurgen Klopp”. 

It may also, though, be because it has become the standard reality of those in his profession. Management has always been stressful. Many of Guardiola’s most famous antecedents — Bill Shankly, Arrigo Sacchi — either resigned or retired because of the strain the job placed on them. The man he identified as the greatest opponent he had faced, Klopp, stepped away from Liverpool for similar reasons.

It has, too, always been a vocation largely reserved for the single-minded, the pathological, the fanatical. And yet even those who choose to do it, again and again, would acknowledge that it appears to be extremely bad for you.

Richie Wellens, the Leyton Orient manager, told The Athletic this year that he can no longer grow a beard because of the stress of the job; Nathan Jones, once of Stoke City and Southampton, used to bite his nails so feverishly that he drew blood. As far back as 2002, (vaguely unscientific) experiments showed that some managers were under such stress during games that they suffered irregular heartbeats.

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“I definitely didn’t feel healthy at the end of my time at Chelsea,” Emma Hayes, now in charge of the United States’ women’s team, said last month. “I don’t want to say it’s pressure. I just think it’s the stress, the toll it took on me.” 

It is tempting to say that is inevitable, given the scale of the football industry, the money at stake, the unwavering scrutiny of the media. And yet, in some senses, management should be less, rather than more, stressful now. 


Hayes walks away after an altercation with the then-Arsenal Women manager Jonas Eidevall in March (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Most clubs have stripped back the burden of the post: technical or sporting directors take care of recruitment; chief executives handle contract negotiations; whole departments exist to analyse games and coordinate scouting. Shankly could not call on a psychologist, a specialist set-piece coach, or a nutritionist.

Yet it appears to have made little effect; management has not become more manageable. Ange Postecoglou, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, might have been exaggerating a touch when he suggested it was the “hardest job in any walk of life”, but it was not difficult to follow his reasoning.

“You can say politics, but this is harder,” he said. “The tenure and longevity of this role now means you go into it and very few are going to come out without any scars.” Asked to compare it to being the prime minister of an actual country, he said: “How many times does he have an election? I have one every weekend, mate. We have an election and we either get voted in or out.”

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In part, that can be attributed to the fact that while football has delegated responsibility behind the scenes, it has not done so in front of the cameras. The manager, particularly in England, more often than not remains the only public face of the club. 

“They have to comment on everything,” Michael Caulfield, a sports psychologist who works with Brentford, among other clubs, told BBC Radio 5 Live last week. “From Covid to Brexit to anything you care to mention: potholes, traffic, the price of hamburgers. Football is not good at sharing that workload. It is too much for one person.” 


Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler at his unveiling in July (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)

That anachronism has practical benefits — as an executive at one club has noted, privately, it makes life easier if certain questions are asked of a manager who can legitimately say they do not know the answer — but it creates the impression that the absolute responsibility for the wellbeing of a club rests on one person’s shoulders.

But far more significant is the fact that football, essentially, actively discourages managers to switch off. Guardiola might be seen as an exception, but he is also presented as a model; the obsessiveness that has been central to his legend for the last decade and a half has created a blueprint for how a manager is supposed to be. 

It is telling, for example, that Fabian Hurzeler — the 31-year-old head coach at Brighton — does not watch television or movies but does read books about “mindset”.

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“What is the mindset from high-performance people? People like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg. I like to understand how they behave, how they get so successful,” he said this season. Fabian Hurzeler’s reading materials are his own business, but this does not sound like switching off.

Indeed, most Premier League managers struggle to describe how they relax. Many exercise, of course — a notable percentage are very fond of padel, with Hurzeler one of several lobbying his club to build a court at their training facility — but genuine outside interests appear to be scarce.

Nuno Espirito Santo likes to “go to the window and look at the River Trent”. The night before he was summarily dismissed by Wolves, Gary O’Neil had allotted time to finish watching the film Wonka with his children. He knew it was “important to switch the brain off”. But he also knew exactly how long he had left. “I will try to switch off for an hour and six minutes,” he said.


The River Trent running by Forest’s ground. Their manager Nuno finds solace in watching the river (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Caulfield described Thomas Frank, his head coach at Brentford, as being unusually well-balanced for a manager — he plays padel (obviously), he skis, he spends time at his house in Spain, he has friends who have nothing to do with football — but even he has admitted his “brain is thinking about the next game” in almost every waking moment during the season.

He sometimes, he said, watches interior design programs on television with his wife. But only because she “forces” him to do it. Roberto Martinez, now managing Portugal, told The Telegraph in 2015 that he had designed his living room so it could contain one sofa and two televisions: one for his wife to watch normal television, and the other for him to watch football matches.

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None of this, of course, is healthy. The League Managers Association, the umbrella body that lobbies on behalf of both current and former managers in England, has published a handbook to encourage its members to find some form of work-life balance; it is at pains to point out that they cannot function to their utmost if they are drained and fatigued.

“That is the biggest problem,” said Caulfield. “Football is exhausting. That culture of ‘be there seven days a week’ has to stop at some point. Managers have to manage their own energy as much as their players. We are not designed to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, under that pressure and scrutiny.” 

Guardiola would, it seems, be proof of that. The symptoms of what it is to be a manager are worse now, of course. He always suffers more after defeats. But it is not so different when things are good; he has been dealing with them for years. “I think stopping would do me good,” he told Garcia, the chef, in one of those stark interviews.

He knows that, and yet he will not. He will, like so many of his peers, keep coming back for more.

(Top photos: Getty Images)

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Tennis mailbag: Challenging Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, baseline boredom, doping debate

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Tennis mailbag: Challenging Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, baseline boredom, doping debate

Tennis stops for nothing. The ATP Next Gen Finals event rolls on in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, while various pre-Christmas exhibitions occupy players before the season resumes from December 27 with the United Cup in Perth, Australia.

There’s still time for some reflection on 2024, and The Athletic’s tennis writers Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare are here for the first of two mailbags, answering your questions submitted earlier this month. This will focus on the season just gone; the next will focus more on 2025.

Read on for their views on how to challenge Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s game; the timeline for equal pay between the WTA and ATP Tours; whether or not tennis is getting boring and if the sport is embroiled in a doping crisis.


Anon: Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic put the grand slams in a headlock for 15 years. What will the current players do (and or can do) to prevent Sinner and Alcaraz from the doing the same? What lessons were learned?

Charlie Eccleshare: The ‘Big Three’ were freakish in their consistency. Even all-time greats ordinarily have off days, some of which result in them exiting a major or two per year prematurely. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic mostly avoided even that, but Alcaraz in particular looks prone to the odd upset (witness the U.S. Open this year, even if that was after a particularly gruelling run comprising two Grand Slam titles and an Olympic final).

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Sinner currently has a higher floor and is far less prone to playing a few listless sets in a row; uncertainty of a different kind surrounds him because of the potential for a doping ban of up to two years. But should they both remain available and reasonably consistent, then the rest of the field has a major problem.

Casper Ruud summed it up at the ATP Tour Finals last month when he explained that the way Sinner and Alcaraz play has rewritten the book of tennis tactics that he grew up with. Patience is no longer an option with these two around: to beat them the chasing pack are going to have to teach themselves to be more aggressive even if it doesn’t come naturally. Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz look most up for the challenge of the current top 10.

Where Alcaraz and Sinner do recall the Big Three’s hegemony is how their extraterrestrial talent demands players to play outside themselves to beat them. It’s not enough to just hit big serves and forehands and hope that will do the job. Players need to claim the front of the court before Alcaraz and capture the baseline before Sinner — and throw in a bit of the opposite to keep them off balance. For an entire match at a time.

Matt Futterman: Right now, I don’t see Sinner and Alcaraz sharing all the Grand Slams for a decade. It’s a lot harder for two players to do that than three or four, and they are the only ones at their level — other than the version of Djokovic that won Olympic gold in Paris.

They’re going to have to deal with injuries. Sinner could get suspended for two years. Stuff happens. Others will hope to fill any voids.

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Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner go head to head in their own tennis galaxy

Dana L: What will it take to have equal pay for the women on the tour? Why is there still such a wide discrepancy below the grand slam level?

MF: Short answer is the TV contracts. The women’s tour contracts bring in about one-seventh of what the men’s tour contracts do. Sponsorships are also a lot cheaper. In a lot of cases I chalk that up to poor management and marketing. The WTA takes low-hanging fruit and sells tournaments to locations where the attendance is terrible and the seats are empty. What media or marketing executive is going to turn on a match and say, “that’s where I want to be?”

CE: The short answer: a genuine commitment from tennis’ various stakeholders to deliver genuine equality. It’s amazing how quickly things can happen when there’s a will. The WTA has committed to achieving equal prize money at combined events by 2027 and non-combined by 2033, but this remains a really hot topic. When I spoke to Aryna Sabalenka at the WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia she cited the need for equal prize money as one of the sport’s biggest issues.

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Max Y: Why is there so little variety on the ATP and WTA tours at the moment in terms of game style? The ATP Finals in Turin encapsulated perfectly just how similar and frankly boring the way the top players play nowadays: it’s all just big baseline games, consistent two-handed backhands and very little variety, making for a pretty dull competition.

MF: Take heart — it’s better than it was, at least on the ATP Tour. Alcaraz has forced everyone to start thinking about the entire tennis court, not just the area along the baseline. Also, with Alcaraz and Sinner playing so aggressively, players increasingly have to attack before they are attacked. That is going to force them to come into the court more and build variety.

As for the women, a lot of us wish Karolina Muchova could clone herself 50 times. That said, Sabalenka has increasingly been using a drop shot. Coco Gauff is working hard on getting better at the net. A wave of serve-and-volley players seems unlikely, but we will take what we can get.

Throw out Turin. It’s a one-off. Indoors, on a very fast court with no sun or wind to contend with, players can sit back and go bang. That won’t happen nearly as much in Australia and certainly not on the organic surfaces from April to mid-July. Single-handed backhands seem like a terrible idea until you watch Lorenzo Musetti thrive at Wimbledon with that killer slice and the ability to roll it at the last second. Plus, Alcaraz is a shotmaker. To borrow the basketball phrase, shooters have to shoot. As long as he is around he will be trying all kinds of mad stuff, and others will try to follow.


Karolina Muchova’s gamestyle captivated tennis fans when she played in 2024. (Pamela Smith / Associated Press)

Anon: When are we going to stop describing men’s tennis as boring baseline battles — variety (net approaches, drop shots, serve/volley, unexpected shot selections) seem to be the norm now, not the exception. Feel like no one’s acknowledging/celebrating one of the most exciting periods of men’s tennis play; all top players need to use the whole court now.

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James Hansen: A dissenting voice is always welcome. The younger players in the top-15-40ish bracket do seem a little more willing to experiment, perhaps being less entrenched than the players mentioned above who grew up through Nadal and Djokovic’s total mastery of baseline tennis. Where we might disagree is the idea that top players need to use the whole court. They do — but most of them can’t and don’t, especially when under pressure. Sinner and Alcaraz’s ability to play the way they do in the tightest moments, particularly that stratospheric tiebreak in the China Open final in Beijing, is what sets them even further apart.

Christopher Z: Is there anyone who peaked this year that we expect to take a step back? Are Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz really top-5 players?

CE: That’s an interesting one. I kept thinking that Paolini would surely come back down to earth at some point last year, and yet she just kept on producing. Maybe she won’t have quite the same impact as she did this year, but I’d expect her to remain in the top 10 and challenge for a few titles.

As for Fritz, his progress feels very sustainable to me. He’s not someone who’s suddenly burst onto the scene, but instead has kept making incremental improvements. You can say 2024 was a breakthrough year for him, but he’s been knocking at the door for a while and it was striking to hear him say that he didn’t even think he’d played that well in reaching the U.S. Open final. It was more than an opportunity presented itself, and he was solid enough to take it.

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Forza, forza, forza: In tennis’ “big” era, Jasmine Paolini proves that a little can mean a lot

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Someone I’d expect to take a step back is Alejandro Tabilo, who began the year ranked world No. 85, achieved a career high of No. 19 and is currently at No. 23. During the first half of the year, the 27-year-old Chilean had one of those periods where everything seemed to slot into place, taking in winning the Auckland 250 in January as a qualifier and then knocking an ailing Djokovic out of Rome on the way to the Italian Open semis. I’d be surprised if he hits similar heights in 2025.


Jasmine Paolini had the best season of her career in 2024. (Julian Finney / Getty Images)

Parva S: Why is there a rise in doping in tennis or is it just a recency bias?

MF: As my colleague Charlie Eccleshare reported in November, testing numbers and the number of anti-doping rule violations have remained pretty steady over the last few years according to the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA). The agency sanctioned 12 individuals for doping offenses in 2022, compared with 13 last year, but two world No. 1s getting sanctioned in the same year is extraordinary. As testing becomes increasingly sophisticated and detects smaller and smaller amounts of foreign substances in blood and urine, it stands to reason that positive tests will rise.

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Explaining Iga Swiatek’s doping ban, why it was kept secret and what it means for tennis

Katherine W: What’s your take on the Ultimate Tennis Showdown? Here to stay or fade away?

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CE: I do think it has a place, and the players seem to enjoy it and feel like it’s useful fitness work because of how explosive it is. The chance to win thousands of dollars probably helps too. Fans also appear to like it and there’s something to be said for events that guarantee — or close to guarantee — seeing the players who are competing at the event, unlike in most ATP and WTA tournaments where there’s always a risk your favourite player could go out early or not be playing on a given day.

Some of the rules, like only having one serve, should also give tennis pause for thought about whether there are elements of UTS that would work well on the main tour. Co-creator Patrick Mouratoglou certainly sounds very determined to make a success of it, so I’d be surprised if it went anywhere anytime soon.

Patrick L: Is Andy Murray coaching Djokovic a one-off or are they looking for it to be a long-term arrangement?

CE: At the moment, the Murray-Djokovic partnership is a short-term arrangement, but if things go well in Melbourne it’s tough to imagine either party walking away. Certainly not Djokovic, but also Murray: can you really see someone as competitive as him turning his back on a winning ticket?

He would like a bit of time at home at some stage, but that was true when he accepted the chance to work with the 24-time Grand Slam champion and his longtime rival of the 2010s. I suspect that Murray will love the buzz of coaching and being back in a Grand Slam environment, especially if they reach the latter stages where Murray hasn’t been for coming up to eight years. Should things go badly, that’s another story.

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(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

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Travis, Jason Kelce give blunt take on Christmas movie Taylor Swift, Kylie Kelce have raved about

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Travis, Jason Kelce give blunt take on Christmas movie Taylor Swift, Kylie Kelce have raved about

It’s been long debated whether the 2003 film “Love Actually” is a Christmas movie, and Travis Kelce’s verdict is in.

The film is labeled as such, but one can find a Reddit thread on arguments saying otherwise.

Well, the star tight end would agree with that thread.

Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce. (David Calvert/Getty Images for American Century Investments)

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Kelce said on his latest episode of his podcast that while he “enjoyed” the movie, he “didn’t feel ‘Christmas’ at all during the movie.”

His brother, Jason, agreed, saying there was “zero Christmas spirit or anything resembling that.”

Jason actually took it a step further.

“‘Love Actually’ might be the worst Christmas movie I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I don’t even know that it’s up for debate.” 

The film follows different couples in the weeks leading up to the holiday in London, so by default, it could be labeled as a Christmas movie, but the brothers disagree. They both feel the same about “Die Hard” as well.

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Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce

Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce (IMAGN)

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Perhaps Travis’ girlfriend, Taylor Swift, doesn’t love what her boyfriend said about the film though — back in 2014, she raved about the movie.

“If you look around, love actually is all around,” she said at the time, according to Page Six.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce hugging on the football field.

A body language expert told Fox News Digital, it seems Swift “feels protected” by Kelce. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Jason’s wife, Kylie, hopped on the pod and dropped that it was “one of [her] favorite movies, period.” So, it seems like both Kelce couples may be having some heated discussions during the holiday.

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Chargers hope to ride stingy defensive momentum past Patriots and into playoffs

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Chargers hope to ride stingy defensive momentum past Patriots and into playoffs

Jesse Minter quickly impressed Chargers players with his calm demeanor during his first season as an NFL defensive coordinator, but as the Denver Broncos rolled up three consecutive touchdown drives last Thursday, even the unflappable Minter started to panic.

He had just spent four days speaking to his players about the proper response to ensure the prior week’s blowout loss to Tampa Bay would be a one-off. They couldn’t afford to make it a trend.

“I was afraid that at one point, I might have spoken that into existence,” Minter said with a slight smile.

Then a second-quarter sack from Joey Bosa sparked a three-and-out. The Chargers kept the Broncos out of the end zone for the last seven drives of the game to hold on for a 34-27 win that put the team on the brink of its first playoff berth since 2022.

“I do think that momentum is real,” Minter said. “To sort of feel us as a defensive unit get our momentum back, it’s huge.”

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By holding the Broncos to six points in the second half, the Chargers reclaimed their lead as the best scoring defense in the NFL, giving up 18.3 points per game. Against the New England Patriots on Saturday, the Chargers (9-6) could become just the sixth team since 1970 to give up 20 or fewer points in eight road games in a season, and the first since the 2010 Chicago Bears.

For a defense hoping to maintain momentum entering the postseason, the matchup is a prime opportunity. The Patriots’ 17.3 points per game ranks 30th in the NFL. New England (3-12) ranks last in passing yards (178.5 per game). Rookie quarterback Drake Maye, who was drafted third in April, has had at least one pass intercepted in seven consecutive games.

The Chargers, who can clinch a playoff berth with a win or a tie, will try to win with thin secondary as safety Marcus Maye (ankle) was placed on injured reserve on Monday.

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye looks to pass against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

(Jeffrey T. Barnes / Associated Press)

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The team claimed Maye off waivers on Nov. 27 to help fill in after safety Alohi Gilman was placed on IR. Maye made a splash in his Chargers debut with a key interception in a win over the Atlanta Falcons, but left last Thursday’s game in the first quarter.

Already without Elijah Molden, who missed the game because of a knee injury, the Chargers suddenly needed practice squad call-up Kendall Williamson on defense. Coaches intimated to the 24-year-old, seventh-round pick out of Stanford that he would be active for the game a few days in advance, but the plan was likely to fill in on special teams.

Then he played 17 defensive snaps in his NFL debut, finishing with one tackle.

“That’s the name of the game to step up when your number’s called,” cornerback Kristian Fulton said after Thursday’s game of Williamson and Dicaprio Bootle, who also was elevated from the practice squad. “It’s a lot of credit to them because they don’t get a lot of reps in practice. So they stepped up big time.”

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Williamson is just the latest player to have an influence after toiling on the practice squad. Veteran safety Tony Jefferson has turned his practice squad reps into a starting role, finishing with 20 tackles in three starts since Gilman went on IR.

Jefferson, who missed one game because of a hamstring injury, played all 64 defensive snaps against the Broncos and had seven tackles.

“He’s a guy that, on the drop of a hat, can go in there and play multiple positions and go in there and execute the defense,” Minter said, “get guys lined up, brings the confidence and brings a little bit of an edge when he’s out there.”

The Chargers haven’t opened Gilman’s practice window yet, although the 27-year-old is eligible to return this week.

Molden was limited in practice Tuesday after he worked with trainers on the sideline Monday, and cornerback Cam Hart was limited too as he works through the concussion protocol. He missed last Thursday’s game.

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Etc.

Punter JK Scott (illness) and linebacker Denzel Perryman (groin) were not seen on the practice field for the second consecutive day. Perryman reinjured his groin last week in a return from a four-game absence. Backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke was working as the holder on place kicks with long snapper Josh Harris and kicker Cameron Dicker. … Offensive lineman Trey Pipkins III missed practice because of a hip injury.

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