The Coaches Notepad

Playing Players Across Age Groups  What age group should players play within? It's an age old discussion that has caused arguments through sporting history. Coaches through out the world will have different ideas and different approaches to player development, this might involve players playing in 'different' age groups. The challenge when 'banding' players together has...

What do you need to do to make an effective session? What is the process to effective practice design?

Unfair Criticism of England Over the last few days, the criticism of England in their performance against Scotland has been everywhere. From ex-players to celebrities and the public, the team have exposed for what is seemingly a shocking result... However in reality is the criticism over the top and is there a different way...

The Importance of Winning  For players, this would mean a more engaging environment, which would blend both the performance-related outcomes, with the process-related outcomes into a blend that benefits both players and coaches. It would create a more conducive environment for learning and performance. When coaches make this brave change in their coaching environment...

Over the last 5 years, the use of a box midfield has become more and more popular in recent years. It was famously used to success in the European Championships by Wales, and used successfully by Bayern Laverkusen in Germany. It was originally used by the great Brazil teams, with the more famous 1-4-2-2-2.However,...

We all know as coaches how important the person is, not just the player. We as coaches know how the best coaches are those who are able to deliver task complexity, with simplicity. Effectively, the best coaches are those who can train many moments with out the need to share mass amounts of information,...

Over the last three years the Premier League champions Liverpool have shown dominance over the premier league Averaging 98 point a season over the last two years, conceding just 56 goals in that time, less than 0.75 goals per game. In this time, they’ve won the Premier League, Champions League and World Club Cup....