Brian sitting over there, Brian he was at Tottenham when i was there and he he said
i kept doing this same uh practice it was like a passenger i loved it it was
like around the corner back this and he said just the players won't be able to
see how it's linked to the game they become good at the practice and i thought about is
right so the players are really good at the practice but when actually came to the game
they couldn't see the picture they were young they didn't they didn't do other
library pictures so since then we've tried to relate it to the game and but it's more
about helping the player within the within the session rather than just coaching the session
i want to start with you on this one Simon in terms of being a part of an academy for such
a long time at Brighton and sort of having a a culture across the football club how
hard within that or is it a good thing um for for for a coach to be able to express
themselves individually when there is such a strong framework at a club yeah i think um
i think at Brighton i touched on earlier that my time there was um you know there was lots
of different managers that came in at four or five and with you know some british some spanish and um
i think there was always that element of as an academy you're always going to have to slightly
evolve your players to suit the needs of the current regime at the top and that's only normal
i think we were encouraged to make sure that you know we are as coaches experimenting
because you know most academy coaches are also on as all of us are all times learning and um
if you're not pushing yourself and challenging yourself to try new things new formations lose
games make mistakes and then you're not going to grow if you're not growing then the players you're
working with aren't going to grow so i think what what what is key is that the principles
are the same that everyone understands you know the key principles involved in
in the club that you're at and that's um you know a way of being and that's a philosophy for me and
there's always going to have to be room for intelligent coaching to allow individuality
whether it be coaches or players to to come through how do you see your role within that
that framework at manchester united yeah it's very similar to what what has just said they i
think there always needs to be a framework there always needs to be principles that you work from
but i think neil bath mentioned earlier there's like room room to maneuver within the framework
uh what you what i don't think you can have is people always experimenting on your teams and
and and the players because if they get it wrong the players might go out the door
so you need someone and people to oversee the structure oversee the coaching make sure that
coaching is taking place and not just session design because there's a difference but yeah i
think there's a framework to and syllabus yeah you talk about and there's like the coaching behaviors
and making sure that it's not just mentioned earlier but it's not just coaching there's a
difference between coaching football and coaching players so coaching football might be the
performance element side of it coaching players is the development side of it and what a framework
allows you to do or a syllabus or a game model it allows you to work within that framework it's the
same probably with not to get mixed up here chris ramsay said this to me a long time ago i said um
not to confuse session design with coaching so session design is just a session
okay coaching is what happens within the session i think sometimes people get carried away with
the session design not the coaching the learning takes place within the session
rather than i just keep good at the session and neil barth mentioned that earlier as well about
he had the other slide it showed um it showed you not just coaching the practice not just coaching
practice actually coaching the player within the practice and brian's sitting over there bro
he was like tottenham when i was there and he he said i kept doing this same
practice it was like a passenger i loved it it was like around the corner back this and he said just
the players won't be able to see how it's linked to the game they become good at the practice
and i thought about his rights so the players were really good at the practice but when it
actually came to the game they couldn't see the picture they were young they didn't they
didn't do the library pictures so since then we tried to relate it to the game and but it's more
about helping the player within the within the session rather than just coaching the session
would you say paul do you ask your coaches to express themselves yeah definitely you you want
to learn and there's there's a certainly there's a bit more freedom like in the 23s and down
in the academy you mentioned about like the philosophy of the club and i 100 agree with
that it can be really strong really powerful i'm sure ralph's must speak about that later that
it has to come from the top it's got to come from the top even to the point of it's pointless
an academy having a real clear identity within a football club and then appointing a manager who
plays a different way or has got different ethos about the game so yeah if you're gonna have any
sort of um identity of the football club it has to be believed in by the owners and then they recruit
the manager off the back of that the players the staff all the way down all the way down and then
within that you can get your creativity and your freedom as a coach and you are recruiting players
who fit type of profile whether that's and it can start as young as you like
um because then you're looking at the type of behaviors got an environment that might
promote certain types of behaviors and cultures who are really clear in the end product and what
it looks like at the top so here's a challenge we had a we had um a coach from uh he was a head of
performance in fact at cambridge united who spoke to coach's voice and he talked about the challenge
around recruitment of young players so so there you are in in sheffield and justin's got his eye
on some player he's gonna nick to manchester united neil barth's driving up to see him the
next day manchester city are on the phone too as well how is sheffield united and for that
matter clubs even lower down the pecking order going to persuade that kid to go and join them
i've picked up lessons and things from from all my experiences so
first of all if i related that to barnsley in the championship when you're managing and you're
pinching players uh we're going to go along to leeds but they're choosing you or or not
having a foreign identity now you're going to play identifying the player and showing him where he
fits within the squad where he fits within the 11 the role you're going to ask him to perform
how you're going to develop him so how you're going to be good for him as well
as him being good for you and and that's what you've got to do you've got to sell and dream
back to the development at first team level again three in particular were really really good for me
and i was delighted to get all of them in that league where harvey barnes ryan kent and adam
armstrong were fantastic players for us but we had to work our socks off to get them above everyone
else and it was that it was this is what we see in you this is how we see you as a player this is
where you fit into r11 this is what i expect from you this is what we can you can expect from us
and take that down now in tools trying to recruit players at 16 14 in sheffield united academy um
we have to be really clear on what we can do for them what we can deliver for them we're really
adamant that we've got a fantastic coaching program and we speak about all the time we try
and live and breathe it and then the evidence of that is ultimately it was in the first team
so for me the biggest selling point is you can be you can have all the the jargon you want but
there's got to be evidence that's got to be proved whether that's at first team level you're doing
what you say you're doing as a manager our first team level because you're doing what you're saying
you're doing as a development coach and we've seen the end product with your academy graduates on
the pitch how did you sell the dream at orient and knotts county and and with the the advice that you
or the words that you use then be different now you've seen the other side of the fence at west
ham i think it's what hackers just said you know it was you coming to a club which is all you know
looking forward but we're trying to get promotion uh we see you within our shape and within our
our our formation as being one of our big hitters in the team we want you to come develop uh i feel
me having the experience i have in you know say for a ryan yates for instance you know he's a
box box-to-box midfielder similar to what i don't know i can give you them little key things what i
used to do you know george grant was a goal scorer in midfield he was attacking me fear of why did
we vote for them i managed to be able to get all them quite quickly from nottingham forest because
i was able to sell them a dream that i you know they were working with someone who's
played in the in in the premier league for over 400 games um and and obviously they'll be major
part of misad and i think that's a massive thing when they're coming they want to know that they're
going to be loved they want to know that they're going to be one of the main players and also they
want to know that they're going to they're going to walk out of your building a better player
feeling like they've they've been um or they've made progress within their in the pathway
you