Happy new year all

With all these lockdowns in this last year do we need to review our players development goals

If we look at kids at school, there would be lots of students who for whatever reason will be behind on the learning of their studies.

They will all be playing catch up wondering if they can meet the goals and demands they were set before lockdown.

is it possible? For some maybe for the majority probably not but they will feel they are running out of time which will inrease their stress and anxiety.

is anything being done to combat this? i dont know, but in football at grassroots we dont need those goals and pressures to stay the same.

These young players of ours have generally missed out on 75% of playing and training time over the last couple of seasons, so we may need to adjust our own expectatios of them

The players will always have thier own anyway, wether they are realistic or not, we may need to go back to basics a bit more to make them feel more comfortable within themselves and as a team.

They will need more reasurance, more encouragement, more support and more understanding, and if that means we have to limit our own goals and expectations of where we think they should be then so be it.

The one positive is that we are all on the same boat in this, and if we have to keep it steady for the time being when we get back to playing before we tackle the big waves then thats what we have to do. The one thing we have in grassroots football is time so lets make the most of it.