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.
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