Arsenal are waiting in the wings. Under their new coach, Unai Emery, they are experiencing a revolution, replacing Arsene's era of "freedom of expression". Emery is more hands on and plans every training session, dealing with minute detail, to make his players great. When Wenger arrived at Arsenal 22 years ago, he started a revolution. I knew about it when I was on an FA course at Loughborough, where the UEFA A the "syllabus" had changed considerably. Charles Hughes' regimented coaching philosophy had been modernised by the FA with media work, diet and nutrition, water intake, sleep patterns and much more were introduced into the qualification. I remember the legendary Dick Bates referring to military books to inspire us during his lectures and demos.
Emery similarly pays attention to very special details and spends hours analysing his training sessions through videos, checking refuelling habits and most obviously, building a new gym complex at the London Colney training ground, ensuring that sessions move at a pace with few wasted intervals changing sessions, preparing his players for high press, pace and intensity when they take to the field. There are longer days, constant movement between events, more commitment and well, all those other technical words you hear the pundits mentioning on the TV.
Emery spends a twelve hour day at the training ground, this includes his personal English speaking sessions and sharing his ideas with his assistants. He patiently listens to their comments and ideas, whilst his players will be there from 10 till 5pm, enjoying two daily sessions. Even Steve Bould has been retained, maintaining a link with the past, the history of Arsenal and the English "way". His philosophy is that even "ordinary people" can overcome great obstacles-it is just a matter of involvement.
Motivational videos, purpose planned packages for individual players to pore over and inspirational reading is all part of his revolution. He insists on his players mixing with all staff at London Colney, nobody is too important. He is also choosing five captains! Can you guess them?
All this leads me to tell you about my day at Huddersfield Town where I was lucky enough to own a "season ticket" for the day. My Hepworth United U15s coaching colleague is lounging on a lounger somewhere in the west country; so I had the pleasure of sitting next to Luke Jones who works for Tracab. On contract to the Premier League and English Football League, Tracab analyses all aspects of football (and other sports) and Luke, on a day off, told me about what he does.
It is a long way from the first BBC Football Broadcast on 22nd January 1927, Arsenal v Sheffield United.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/1760579.stm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxaQcXUvgpw
Fascinating stuff and we marvelled at how many jobs the great game of football has created over the years; his included and mine I guess too.
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