I'm hoping somebody can help me understand if/when it is the right time to give players fixed positions. As a parent, I couldn't understand why we didn't have set positions but after moving into coaching and reading lots about the foundation phase I now understand how we need to avoid pigeonholing players at an early age and allow them to develop all around.

We have 9 players in the squad for our under 9s 7-a-side team and if you ask them their preferred positions we've got 1 goalkeeper, 1 defender and 7 wingers/strikers. The struggle I have is twofold:

- Some players are our "rocks" in defence but want to have opportunities to play further upfield and to be fair have played really well in more advanced attacking positions.
- To accommodate this then means dropping some other players into more defensive positions than they'd like and, despite explaining to them why they need to do it for their own development, to let other players have a chance in different positions etc, they inevitably sulk and just look disinterested for that part of the game.

It's very clear that the majority of teams we're facing have adopted set positions and the other three teams in our age group at our club have done so and they are seeing the benefits in terms of results. I'm very much on board with the development rather than results approach but I'm aware of parents grumbling (so will need to have a discussion with them) and want to make sure the kids keep enjoying the game. 

So, do we need to start giving the players set positions based on what we think their strengths are as we obviously can't let them all play in their favourite positions all the time?

I'm probably feeling a bit more aware of it today as we narrowly lost a game when we switched things up after being ahead going into the final quarter (we don't tell the kids the score but we all know that they keep track of it themselves).

Oh, and did anybody else question their own decisions all the time as a new coach?!