Time for a bit of reflection as we head into our winter break. 6 months working with the U19s. My work this season is much more detailed, working with the biggest talents in our academy. Got me thinking about talent ID and player development. 🧵⚽️📈 #SKSU19 #football #coaching I believe that every young player has a superpower, something that they are better at than others at the level they play at. Some are easy to ID (dribbling, technique, speed etc) and some are harder (determination, leadership, intelligence etc) to see.

After 6 years in CZ, speaking to a lot of coaches and those involved in the game here, there is one issue that stands out; they don’t produce enough 1 vs 1 dribblers or ruthless finishers.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about that in recent weeks. 🧵 #fotbal #coaching #football First the disclaimers. This is in no way a personal attack or an attack on any specific club or organisation. It’s only a general observation. I have a passion for developing Czech football! My observations come from my education in England. England isn’t CZ, I respect that but..

How to construct a training session... or more precisely, 'How I create a training session in a professional academy' (everyone does it differently)... a thread (hopefully not too long and hopefully informative).. The foundation of any session is observation... Videos and real-time observation of training sessions, games, individual players and groups of players. What are their strengths? What can we improve/refresh? This will give you...

Football parents can be the absolute worst. Saw a father on social media complaining about his 11 year old son being let go by a professional academy, begging for contacts for recruiters of other pro academies, writing a big post about how talented his son is and... how desperate his son is to ‘make it’ as a professional player. Same dad also ruled out playing grassroots because his son ‘doesn’t want to go back to that level.’ Parents need as much education as the player. When you are 12 no one knows what you will be as an adult...

A positive analysis (for once) of #SCFC goals against #LTFC this afternoon (a thread). Two goals and two examples of simple, yet effective positioning when attacking crosses/balls from wide areas. Also an example of why the 3-5-2 works...sometimes... (1/5) #Stoke #StokeCity Why the 3-5-2 (occasionally) works. The absence of a winger and Campbell’s central starting position, draws in their FB and creates space in wide areas for Campbell to exploit (yellow circle). (2/5) #SCFC #StokeCity #Stoke

Watching the #SCFC #QPR game back from yesterday and unsurprisingly, all of the back four have had an absolute shocker. Strap yourself in for some graphic content! There’s a lot of horrific defending to be analysed... (1/11)💀#stokecity #stoke #football #analysis We start with the first #QPR goal. Things look good from here. Two banks of 4 and in a fairly decent shape. I’ve circled Smith but also look at Chester and BMI’s position in relation to Batth. Should give you a clue about what’s about to go down... (2/11)