Here are eight top tips from former FA player development coach, John Allpress, to help you work effectively with young players.

Design

Design relevant, realistic and appropriate practices that will support players to learn the game. For example, a 6v6 practice with offside lines included.

Develop

Develop football-related challenges that focus on learning. When learning about playing forward, you may set the players the following challenges: ‘I’d like you to try to let the ball run across your body and play forward as much as you can’ and ‘try to look for the spaces that allow you to do this before you get the ball’.

Support

Support this with the right question that helps the players think about how to get success. For example: ‘how can the pass you receive help you to play forward?’

Coach

Coach the players using a variety of coaching methods. Coaches should, however, be sure to let the players play utilising a variety of different game formats such as 4v4, 6v6 and 8v8. Don’t stop the players every couple of minutes.

Take care

Take care of the players learning and progress by guiding, praising, reminding, supporting, coaching, watching, checking, helping, reviewing, re-focusing, re-enforcing, challenging, questioning, modelling, demonstrating, instructing, humouring, evaluating, calming, listening, re-evaluating, coaxing, assessing, asking, re-assessing, teaching, correcting, reassuring, tweaking, skilfully neglecting - knowing when players need time and space to breathe, self-correct and maybe sort stuff out themselves. The list is endless and open for coaches to add to based on their own experience.

Build

Build the players’ technical and tactical understanding adding as much technical and tactical detail as is required to support players’ learning - take age, ability, maturation and experience into account. Note: the very youngest players will not be concentrating on position-specific work in the 5-11 age range.

Encourage

Encourage player reviews and self-evaluation. It is important for players to review their learning during activities, evaluating their performance against the focus of the session.

Time should be planned to accommodate this as often as possible. Allowing players to evaluate their performance may be a new idea for some, but it is a quick and simple process:

• Ask the players to review their performance by marking themselves out of ten against the focus of the session.
• Then ask them to take some time to think about improving their performance by just one mark. If they gave themselves seven out of ten, how can they make it eight?
• Play on for five more minutes allowing the players to carry out their improvements.

Promote creativity

Creativity is imagination in action and can be defined as original ideas that have value. Once players understand where their new ideas fit, they should be encouraged to experiment and practise with them. Players should be encouraged to develop original responses which suit them as individuals.

What do you think of these top tips? What would be your advice to coaches working with young players? Let us know in the comments below!