Thinking ahead to problems that you can solve during the first week of the New Year is an important part of your preparation for the next phase of your season.
Read the advice below while you are preparing for your New Year’s Eve party! Why not invite your players for a get together while they are still on school holidays so they can have a kickaround with the ball while you talk to the parents about your plans for the coming season.
There are plenty of things to think about that you will have to face once the season kicks off again.
Here are some ideas for those tricky problems both on and off the field that you will face in the coming year:
Have the parents of your players been causing you grief in the first part of the season? Check out my advice in Dealing with critical parents. Criticism from parents is often a tool to defend their children and to defend themselves in the face of other parents with higher achieving kids – it’s not an attack on you as such but it can be hard to ignore.
Once you’ve dealt with the parents you need to think about whether your players are achieving their potential. Read my advice in Challenge your players to use their creativity. Giving players problems to solve during training is a great way to get them to do it in matches.
One of the problems you will have faced this season is how to deal with the players on the subs bench.If you have the same ones on the bench every game they will fall behind and the team will find it hard to be at their best when injuries or holidays mean players are absent. How to handle the subs will help you out.
The way you have been addressing your players could be key to how they respond to you. Having started working with a new team over past couple of weeks I have had to remind myself of some best practice that often gets lost when you’ve been coaching a team for a long time. A good time to reassess the way I talk to my players gives you the low down on the way ahead in the New Year.
in Email newsletters, Set pieces
My team will be back to normal training in just a week leaving the best part of a month to get ready for match play. There is all sorts of things to work on but one thing that is often neglected is working on set pieces. MORE
in Blog, Team Management
I’m beginning to wonder what the legacy of a Covid-19 structure to football training will make once we have a more or less return to normality on the touchline. MORE
in Email newsletters, Small Sided Games
At my club we are going to coach right through to the new season with no break. My players are desperate for some contact games but I am careful they don't go too full on because they haven't done contact for some time. MORE
in Email newsletters, Pre-season
With the move back to contact in my area of the world it is now a great time to run trials to build your squad for next season. It is not something I have given time to yet because trials when play is non-contact is not ideal. A player might be brilliant with individual skills but put them in a match situation and they will show a different side – and that includes player attitudes. MORE
in Email newsletters, Small Sided Games
I shall be using small-sided games with my players to give them an exciting way to get back to competitive play and also for myself to see how working on their technique during the non-competitive stage has helped them in game play. MORE
in Email newsletters, Return to play
"Can we do more than just passing!" – I am sure you've heard this during your training sessions in the current social distancing, non contact play. Which is what a lot of coaches have also been asking me. MORE
