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[Jamie]

Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. As always, we're Jamie and Louise and today we're joined by Emily Senior, who's returning to talk about how you can help your players develop the core skills. So, hi Emily,

[Emily]

welcome back to the show, how are you? Yeah, thank you for having me, no really good to be back and well are you?

[Jamie]

Yeah, all good thank you.

[Louise]

Well thank you, It's really nice to have you back with us. So for anybody that hasn't tuned into an episode that you've been on before, can you just give us a quick overview of what it is that you do for the FA?

[Emily]

Yeah, yeah, of course. So I work in the women's talent game team. So I'm a coach developer within the women's talent game. So helping coaches across the talent side of the female game to develop, give them any support that they need to take them on across their journey.

[Jamie]

Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you for that. Now talking about, obviously you mentioned the word journey there, as you've been on the podcast a few times and even kindly was on earlier this season, we thought that we'd do something a little bit different to start the show this time.

[Louise]

Okay. Yep. So instead of the 30 second challenge to start off, we thought we'd have a little bit of a reflect on some of your coaching stories. If you have any favourite coaching stories you'd like to share?

[Emily]

Favourite coaching stories, okay brilliant. For me the big ones are the moments where I've probably taken the most away. So this one's fairly recent, probably within the last two years and I think that's proof that you're always learning, you're always developing, you're always changing because I've been working with senior players across the last probably six years and for me at that point I think I always assumed that players of a senior level have got the foundations and are at a point where some information can be missed and left out. And I probably had a real light bulb moment in one of my most recent deliveries over the last year where I've realised that, so I had an individual that was really, really struggling with their pressing and how they would press to set a trap alongside others. And for years I feel like I've really developed my technical detail and been able to showcase that in a variety of different ways, but learning very quickly that an individual one method doesn't always work for them. And whilst I'd given the technical detail and felt like I'd shown a great visual to the whole group that this one individual really wasn't hitting home. And I felt like I'd done enough. I felt like I'd shown it, demonstrated it, I'd given enough repetition in the practice to allow for this action, this press and intercept action to happen naturally so that they had the opportunity to do it themselves. But it really wasn't clicking. I could see from the individual that they still weren't approaching in the right angle, even though we'd shown it. They'd seen others do it and they still weren't picking up from that. So it really challenged me as a coach. This was one of our best individuals and an outstanding striker, and they were going to be a really big part of the trigger for everybody else in the team. So really needed the individual to understand it. And a lot of my teaching background I'd learnt from over the years, you know, how to read individuals and not push them a little bit too much psychologically. So I didn't want to keep hammering home too much. So what I'd realised is away from the pitch was going to be the best learning moments for that individual. So, you know, sometimes in the moment, they're not going to get it and it's okay to not keep hammering it home, to not keep going past with your drive-bys and keep hammering the same messages. If they've not quite got it in that moment, we're probably going to have to look at other ways. All it took was a conversation off the pitch, away from the field, to be able to show them tactical on a tactics board and then let them go back out in the next session where pressure was off. And I think that comes back to, look, we say it all the time, don't we? You've got to know your individuals and what works for them. And I'm so glad that I didn't push it and really tried to hammer it because I think I'd have lost their confidence more than anything else if they'd have felt like I was pushing them. But it was a real eye-opener for me that even some of your best players, some of your players that you know look like really talented across a variety of different skill sets, sometimes aren't just going to pick up those key messages and we've just got to give them some breathing space sometimes. So that was a really big one for me, even at this point in my journey.

[Louise]

Yeah, it's really good reflection and kind of you're always using those skills that you've picked up along the way, no matter who you're coaching, I guess.

[Emily]

That's it. That's it. Because, you know, understanding the individual has been something that I've done in every kind of phase that I've worked with so I'm glad that I'd learnt all of that previously to know not to push the individual because psychologically I've lost the player. So as much as I might have developed the technical side of what I needed to get out, I'd have completely lost them psychologically in the process. So finding that balance is really, really important.

[Jamie]

Oh, brilliant. Thanks for that, Emily. And ties in very nicely, which is great. Because today we are talking about the core skills, pressing obviously being one of them. So I guess the best place to start is, can you remind us and the listeners and those tuning in what all 10 of them are?

[Emily]

Yeah, absolutely. So we have five of each. So five of our attacking core skills, five of our defending core skills. Your attacking core skills, you have passing, moving with the ball, receiving, turning and of course the one that all the players love, finishing. And then our defending core skills, we have pressing, which we've spoken about already, intercepting, marking, challenging, which involves your tackling piece, and then recovering and covering.

[Louise]

Yeah, really good overview there. In your experience, which core skills tend to happen naturally and which do you only tend to see more of if it's the focus of your session?

[Emily]

This is a really interesting question because naturally we should see all. We should see all core skills because you know the clues in the title, they're at the core of the game. Every single individual will have to show those core skills in some form of action when they're on the ball or off the ball. But for me, what I notice and what I've learned from my experience is a lot of people find those skills that happen on the ball a lot easier to coach and players found it a lot easier to learn because they're the ones that they observe when they watch the game. So to the untrained eye, when you're observing the game, you tend to watch the ball. So, you know, the skills like passing, people don't mind unpinning that because when they see someone pass the ball, they're watching it, all right? Same with moving with the ball, they're watching the individual with the ball at their feet. So they feel a little bit more comfortable underpinning what that looks like and the detail that comes with that. Whereas your skills like intercepting, where you have to think of a lot of things away from the ball, you know, your timing of it, your trigger that you're looking for to go and intercept it, arriving too early versus too late. That's all going on. All those parts are going on away from the ball. Same with recovering and covering space. That's happening behind what's going on on the ball. So for me, naturally they all happen and they all happen and there's opportunities for them to happen all of the time, but does it naturally come out in people's coaching and interventions and players learning? Will we see a player do it naturally? Not always. There's some, like the ones we've just spoken about, that we do have to go and give a little bit more detail to start to underpin so that they know what to do.

[Jamie]

Do you have any sort of advice to help people if some of those don't, it's mainly like the out of possession, the defending ones, if they're happening away from the ball, do you have any advice to help like coaches actually work on those if they don't become more natural to themselves and to the team?

[Emily]

The really big thing for me when we're talking about core skills is being really clear in what your intention is. What am I trying to get out? And what do I want more importantly? What am I trying to get out and what do I want more importantly, what am I trying to get out for the players to take away and if we're really intentional with that, so if we're talking about interception and we're talking about the timing of our interception, then that needs to become the focus. And if that becomes the focus, that's where our lens should be. So when we're watching the game, we shouldn't necessarily be watching the individual on the ball and how they're moving with it. We should be turning our attention to the individual that could be ready for that next piece of an interception. So it all starts with your planning process and where your clarity is in it. If you don't have clarity, it's gonna be really hard to bring that out with the players. So that would be my biggest tip, to have some real intention behind what you're trying to bring out.

[Jamie]

Out of those ten, do you actually have a favourite that you like to coach and what's the best piece of advice you can give to coaches to work on that particular core skill?

[Emily]

Yeah, I mean a really interesting one for me is always receiving because receiving can be accompanied with so many other actions. You know, when we receive the ball, I might be receiving to dribble and move with it into a new space. I might be receiving the ball to play backwards. I might be receiving the ball with a player on my back and having to use some strength. I might be receiving the ball to play another pass. I might be receiving to finish first time. So for me, receiving, I always find a really, really interesting one because I can always accompany it with something else that gives players real purpose to what they're doing with the ball. So I really enjoy that. A big one for me is variety when it comes to receiving. You know, the game throws up so many different types of ways that the ball's going to arrive at my feet. So some of them can't be planned. You know, We often like things to look really polished. I'm sure when someone pictures a way to receive in their mind, they think of receiving it on the back foot and being able to take it first time past the player. We think of the really nice, pretty stuff. That's not always the case in football. You know, if our teammates had to make a really difficult pass, they've just got their self out of a tricky moment and they've only just seen our movement, then that pass might not be technically executed in the best way. How we then adjust our body to be able to receive with a certain amount of touches, potentially even no touches, becomes really important. So for me, that's why I love coaching receiving because you can manipulate sessions to make sure that they see these kind of varieties. Is it coming in the air? Is it bouncing along the floor? Is it coming to my leading leg so that I have to think about if I'm going to take a negative touch or come away from the player? It's all these kind of things that we need to consider. So yeah, receiving is a really interesting one, I think.

[Louise]

How early should coaches start really focusing on core skills and how does that focus evolve as players get older?

[Emily]

As early as we're coaching is as early as we should be looking at our core skills. Now, what I find really interesting is the foundation stage or our earlier stages of development is that a lot of people really worry that we don't have the technical execution of a lot of these skills. So if we think about a six-year-old trying to pass the ball, then that's going to look really different to how a senior level pro is going to pass the ball. And I think people worry about trying to get that technical side really high level without any decision-making having to come into it. So avoiding skill and focusing purely on technique and when we do that then we tend to lean towards practices that are very much based around unopposed and, you know, mannequins or cones become targets because we're just solely focusing on the technique and the way that we strike the ball. But our foundation players still need to know the decision making And they still need to know that, you know, like we just said about receiving, when they go into the game, it's going to throw up so many other different ways that's going to change the technique that they use. So we have to make sure that there's some interference even while we're starting to embed the technical detail as well? So when we think about different surfaces of the foot that we use to pass the ball, are we allowing them to still have interference so that if they have to take the extra touch before the pass that they do it and they're not just doing it first time each time, they know the right decision to take with that pass. Do they know when they need to use the outside of the boot as opposed to the inside because of the way that the presser is approaching them? All these little bits of detail, we need to make sure that we're starting to design practices that allow for those bits of repetition. You know, as we start to evolve, second part of your question there, as we start to evolve and they go through their stages of development, that's when we're probably adding more of the tactical side of the game. And, you know, we've just spoken about the tactical side that they kind of discover it and guide themselves through in the foundation stage. But as we go through the PDP and senior level, we want them to get something out of that action. So for me, passing becomes such a broad subject at that point because what is the intention of my pass? What are we trying to get out of the session that's going to allow us to beat the opponent? So, for example, am I passing to entice the defender? So am I purely passing this ball to my centre-forwards feet to entice the defender onto their back to create space in behind for the next runner. So that might become the focus of the session. So then the detail around that pass becomes very different to if I'm talking about a pass that's going to switch play. So if we're talking about passes to switch play, then we're talking about a completely different technique because we need the ball to move faster. We're talking about a completely different range and length of pass. So the intention, and I keep coming back to that word, the purpose behind what we're trying to bring out is probably the main part that evolves for me because then that really details what underpins what you're going in to look for, what you're going in to intervene on, everything that you're doing in your coaching craft.

[Jamie]

Just giving us some good top tips there. First of all, like mentioning like moving across like the practice spectrum and then also like actually looking at what the real focus is. If you had to give like your top three tips to help coaches work on the core skills, what would they be?

[Emily]

Number one is your clarity. What are you trying to bring out is a really, really big one. The second one is practice design. So does your practice design allow for lots of repetition of what you're trying to bring out? If it allows for that, then you've got the opportunity to go in and give the detail. And then my third one would be around that detail. So if you are really clear on it in your planning process, do you have clear pictures in your mind that you might see come to life in that practice that you can go and give the detail on. So if I take you back to intercepting, for example, and this probably links to our six capabilities a little bit now as well, so trying to combine the two. But when I think about intercepting, that timing and that deception to be able to sneak in to pounce on the ball becomes really, really important. So if I'm looking at a particular part of the pitch, let's say I'm trying to intercept centrally to start a counter-attack, then what does that look like becomes the starting point for my planning so that then I can start to detail how I want the player to approach that interception, what side of the player they're approaching on, the distance that I want them to start their positioning at and then timing. If I arrive too early, they're not going to play the ball. If I arrive too late, I'm not going to make it for my interception. So all of that detail I've got in my planning piece, that's what I'm bringing out to players. And then I can go in when the session's live, I know what I'm looking for, I know the moments that I can go in and give the detail and they might do some of it. They might do some of that naturally, well, they become the moments that I praise. They become the moments that we celebrate as a team so that everybody else says, well, that's what we need from Interception. So they're my three big ones, I think. What do

[Louise]

you think you need to look for to see who's flying and who needs a bit of help? And what advice would you give to coaches to help them support players who are struggling a little bit, as well as those who are striving or thriving?

[Emily]

As always, there's going to be so much differentiation and it's always going to depend on what core skill you are coaching. I've just mentioned across my own journey about the outstanding striker, when it came to finishing, I probably wouldn't need to push her as much. When it came to the pressing side, she really struggled on that. So it's going to vary for every individual in your team, dependent upon the skill that you're trying to bring across. So my first bit of advice would be, don't panic if one week when we're focusing on passing and we see a player thriving, don't worry that when we move on to a new topic like covering or recovery runs, if they're struggling with that, like they can be a thriver and a striver in one aspect and be struggling in another, so don't be concerned about that. But for me, the big thing when you do see the differentiation in your group is being able to offer support in a variety of different ways. So we mentioned it earlier with the player that I was working with. Have we given a visual demonstration of what this looks like? Some players need to learn that way. Some players, they want to actually see you do it. They want to see modelled great practice. They need to see what good looks like. So sometimes we're going to have to step in and do that ourselves as well. If we don't feel comfortable doing that, find the player that you know is going to model it really, really well as well. It might also be that we need to give them a brief overview prior. Some players really want to know the detail before they go out and do it. We could try that as well, whether that's on a tactics board or with cones on the ground, you know, a bit of a walkthrough so that it's a bit of a steadier pace for them and not live in the moment which can feel a bit daunting to some players. So again, it comes back to knowing your individuals and what's going to work for them but yeah, adapt, adapt to the needs of the individual and very much going to be skill dependent about how you go about it.

[Louise]

You kind of mentioned quite a few different ways that you can kind of explain it. Would you do them all at once or would you do kind of one and then just see how it lands and then?

[Emily]

That's a great question and again comes back to knowing individuals. So there's never a right or wrong answer, but what we have to be really conscious of, I always work off benefits and trade-offs. So what am I gaining and what's gonna be my big benefit? And obviously in this case, we're hoping that the big benefit is that they understand the action, the core skill that we're trying to bring out. But am I trading off a lot of player engagement by giving them all of that at once? I'm probably losing a lot of them if I'm honest with you. If I'm giving them demonstration, good modelling, visuals, I'm trying to take a lot of their attention whilst not having very much ball rolling time, that's a really big trade off for me. Because what you've got to work out is, are they actually getting much of that benefit? Have I overloaded them that much and lost so much engagement that they're even taking in any of the detail that I'm giving them? It might be fantastic detail that I planned prior but they've not taken in 10% of it because I've lost their engagement. So for me, it's knowing the individual and knowing what they're going to struggle with prior and then going, this is the best learning tool for that individual. That's how I'm going to approach the situation. And if they're still struggling at that point it's probably going to be more of you you want to one individual interventions so that you're not taking that that engagement away from the whole group and the whole practice would be my biggest advice on that.

[Jamie]

Now if you pick any of the 10 core skills, so pick your favourite. Can you share an example of a session or an activity that you find can really help players develop that skill?

[Emily]

A great one, we'll go with the receiving. I mentioned it earlier because it adds a lot of variety. A great one for me and quite a simple one because I always find this tricky when we're talking through our practices here on the coach cast, as opposed to being able to show it. So quite a simple one to allow for that variety. Imagine you've got two teams, team around the edge of an area, just a squared area, size dependent, dependent upon the amount of players and the format of football that you're playing. So try and make the space relevant to the format of football that you're playing so that they're covering similar distances. But just a squared area, one team around the edge, one team centrally. If you can have equal teams, brilliant. If you need a bit of variety in numbers that's okay as well, it'll still flow. Players on the outside are playing into the players in the middle. Now you can imagine traffic, okay, so you've got all of one team in the middle. So you're going to have loads of the traffic that they'd have on the pitch. That's your interference, but without the pressure. OK, so that we want to start without the pressure, particularly for that session I'm talking about now, I'm probably working with more of your foundation or youth development phase players. Can talk about how we'll progress it for older players in a moment. But when you've got that busy area in the middle, what you're asking from the players on the outside is I want to see loads of variety in how you're playing the ball into this player. Sometimes I want you to loft it, a little bit of a chip on the ball. Sometimes I want you to really drive it, so a little bit of power on that pass. Sometimes, just play it in with the inside of your foot, maybe even the outside of your foot on some. Sometimes I want you to be moving with the ball before you play it in. Okay, so give them lots of ideas, the players on the outside, so that they can go and show some freedom and creativity as well. Players in the middle, then when they're going out to receive it from an individual and they've got to demand that, I go out to receive from you, they're receiving it in different ways all of the time. The way that you can start to make players think a little bit more in this one is, can the player on the outside that's feeding in think about how the individual is approaching them to receive? Because they're gonna now think about, how can I best help them with the way that they receive? And that's the kind of detail that you can start to drip in as well. So you've given them freedom at the start, now you're saying, okay, I want you to assess the movement of that player. So now they're thinking about the combination between and the connection between one another, how I'm going to give that player the ball to best send them on their way with the least amount of touches or with the most effectiveness to get into the space and onto the next player. So they receive it, they turn out and they give it to another player that will now be free of the ball on the outside. Loads of repetition on that. Make sure that you rotate the team so that both teams get a go at it. And if you have got those in the group, and this probably comes back to Louisa's question a minute ago about how do you push those that are striving? How do you really challenge those that are doing this really naturally, no matter the way that it's getting delivered to them, they're really, really good on their receiving. Well, can we add that little bit of pressure now? If we've got some that are still struggling, we might not want the same challenge for the whole group. Split the square in half, have one side where there's a pressing player. There's now an individual in the middle, take them from either team because it won't matter where you've got your overload or your under load really. Put that pressing player into one half. The players in the middle then have got an option between, I can actually go and receive in this half with the pressing player if I'm feeling brave, if I'm feeling bold and I want that challenge from somebody coming in to try and take the ball from behind me as I receive, or I could wander over into the other side if I'm struggling a little bit. If I still need a little bit of time just with the normal interference that was there before, I'll wander over there and I'll receive in there. And you can always add more. You can always add more. If they need a little bit more challenge, get that extra presser in there. The whole group needs a challenge, have more pressers covering the whole space and really look at what that receiving technique looks like with the variety.

[Louise]

A lot of coaches do struggle for time, so to help with their planning, do you have a practice they could use to help them work on a core skill and examples of small tweaks that they can make to use it to work on some of their other core skills.

[Emily]

Look, all of these core skills all come out naturally because the game demands it. So when you are struggling for time, the game is the best tool to use. That is my best piece of advice. So when I think of intercepting, a great starting practice to get players to understand that timing that we spoke about and that the arrival of an interception to be able to win the ball back. A great one for me is handball. So it covers the same principles of the game of football, so there's not much teaching to do in terms of rules or anything like that. We're just using hands. We're just going to use our hands, because it's a little bit easier technically. So we take that kind of daunting piece away from the technical side. Ball's probably not going to move as fast, which means at interception we can judge things a little bit easier. And we've still got the direction and opposition that we have in the game naturally. So they're shooting towards one goal, they're defending the other goal. The direction's still there. Ask them that they don't play above head height, so it can't go over anyone's head, and then you can start working on that interception but with the hands. So I'm now thinking about when that player is going to pass the ball to the next individual, how close am I in my starting position? Because if I'm too far away, I'm never going to make the interception. So starting position becomes an area that I can start to coach. Are you close enough with your starting position? Body shape becomes another part that I can start to coach because they're still going to have to shape up to get in between where the ball is going and then timing of arrival. So three things that I can go and coach there and my practice is just really the game. We're using hands because we've taken a bit of the pace away to be able to replicate it, but we can bring that back in then. Get the ball back on the floor after that and see if they can now do it with the action of technically trying to intercept and that's when you can bring in some of the detail around what the foot would look like, what the stretch action would look like as they go and try to intercept the ball. And for me, what comes with that also is an element of success because that's what players need. That's what's going to engage players and that's what's going to make the interception action land with them to take into the game. Because if I'm intercepting in my handball session, knowing that I can then go to play forward to score, I know what the real purpose behind intercepting is. And you can even get into some of your detail because it might be that you want them to understand that when they intercept, if they can't go forward, they can retain the ball. So you can start to bring that kind of detail into it as well so that they are understanding the purpose behind what interception can do in terms of turning over possession and winning it back for your team. So For me, the game is a great tool. Use that to your advantage and see how you can adapt formats, you know, 3v3, 2v2, 5v5. Go big if you want to as well to show them the full picture but for me, formats are a great way to play around and bring out some of these great core skills.

[Jamie]

How important is it like the volume and variety whether it's different formats or different type of practices how important is it that they're being offered to players to work on those skills?

[Emily]

Yeah it's huge it really is and at all levels and ages and stages of the game it's huge. You know I work predominantly with senior players and for me the 3v3 game becomes vital when I'm looking at individual actions and how they combine with others so yeah different variety of formats look the larger scale formats are also going to be needed as well. When I spoke to you earlier about passing and passing to switch play as opposed to passing over a shorter range to entice players, we're going to need a larger format to be able to understand the technique and the tactics behind passing a longer range pass to switch play. That might be across the person I always think about that does this brilliantly is Alex Greenwood. The technique that Alex Greenwood has to be able to switch out from either left back or from her centre back role, whichever role she's playing, out to the right back. You know, she uses what we all reference as a bit of a daisy cutter technique where she's striking the ball with her laces and really driving it across the top of the grass. You know, that's a really tricky technique. Is Alex going to be able to practice that in a 3v3 setting? Probably not. But she'll practice a lot of the other core skills within the 3v3 that she wouldn't be able to do in the 11 v 11 as frequently. So that's why what I said earlier around your intention and having real clarity about what you're going after becomes the real starting point. Because if you're not clear on that, will you pick the right format to allow for repetition of it, will you have the correct detail to underpin it and give to the players? Probably not. So it has to start with what is the main intention and outcome.

[Jamie]

Now just thinking of something that could benefit those that are tuning in, could you give us an insight into maybe the type of coaching points that you would want coaches maybe to deliver to their players to help them with each of the core skills? I think you've touched on some of them before, but if we can just have like a bit of a summary across all ten So it might be a bit of a challenging answer that we'll have a bit of time for.

[Emily]

Okay, when we look at passing, we've mentioned quite a lot, it will depend on what you're trying to bring out. So be really clear on that. And when we're talking technically, we're talking surface of the foot, way that we strike the ball, kind of like you're buying mechanics of that action. But for me, the more important part is the decision-making behind it. So trying to offer them the moments to make decisions, and it becomes a skill at that point, not just something that we technically execute. So they need interference so that they have to think of the reason behind their pass. So that's really important with passing. Receiving, we've spoken lots about. So that variety, the way that we bring the ball in, that might be no touch. So giving them an understanding as to why they might use a no touch. Well, it's the speed that I can turn, which is going to eliminate a defender quicker. Now we can only do that if we've got the space to be able to go in behind after the no touch turn. So just making sure that they understand the difference between that no touch or receiving with a player tight on and maybe having to take one or two touches to get away from the player becomes really important. Turning, my detail, the piece around turning for me would be understanding space again, similar to your receiving. So the difference between having a player touch tight to be able to turn or having space behind me to be able to turn more freely. Again, it might be turning from a 360 point of view, so you're midfielder, there's loads more detail that you're going to be giving there, but you might also look at turning from a full-backs position where they're kind of on the half turn and it's about taking that first touch with their receiving skills away. What else have we got? Finishing. Another one for me, and there's lots of work going on around this at the moment, variety. Variety is so important when it comes to finishing. We know from a lot of game insights that the majority of finishing at the top level is first time, first time finishers. So how often are we allowing players opportunities to finish first time? And again, similar to receiving, the ball isn't always going to travel into us in the most perfect manner. Sometimes it's going to be bouncing up at us to finish first time. Sometimes it's going to be coming really nicely into my end step. Sometimes I'm going to be running onto the ball. Sometimes it's going to be coming across me. Sometimes it's going to be coming slightly from behind me. So all these different ways to add the variety so that the player can understand the decision making behind it. Keep coming back to that term decision making becomes really important so that we can let the players have the tools themselves. Moving with the ball is a brilliant one. And when we talk about intention for moving with the ball, when a lot of people think about moving with the ball, they think about tight spaces and great dribbling technique to be able to get past the player, maybe in a one V one situation, which is brilliant. Like We need to make sure that players have the opportunity to do that. Also, what about when we get into the spaces in behind and we receive the ball, and we actually have to explode with the ball at our feet. We have to drive into the space and that becomes bigger strides out of our feet. So we talk about this running with the ball versus moving with the ball or dribbling. Okay, so running with the ball versus dribbling, it's all encompassed in this term moving with the ball. So Again, be intentional. What do you want players to get? You might have a session that that kind of contrasts the both for them so that they can see the difference between the two Or you might just solely focus on on one of those so just be really intentional around what that looks like And then onto our defensive core skills. Pressing. I think a lot of people are really clear on body shape when it comes to pressing. So body shape to force the play one direction and dependent upon tactics and strategy would depend on where you're forcing them. Location of the pitch, you know, if we're higher up the pitch, we might actually force them to go inside because we know we've got great midfielders to intercept. If we're in our defensive third, then we're probably thinking about forcing them outside and away from that danger goal. So just for me, the big one around pressing is do players understand how to force either way? Speed of approach is a really big one for pressing. The intention with a press is to put the player under pressure and to panic the individual that's on the ball. So without speed and pace with that press, it probably isn't your press. So making sure that your detail is around that. Intercepting, we've spoken quite a lot about. We've spoken a lot around the timing of that and your body shape, your starting position. You can see how we're linking into a lot of the capabilities, the six capabilities when we dig deeper into the core skill and I think that's important that we tie both of them in. That gives you the detail. Marking. Marking is probably another one of those that we spoke about at the beginning of the show where we said, you know, when you're watching everything that's going on the ball, are you actually, do you players really understand? If we all think about the grassroots game and when an individual first starts playing football, how often do you still see the coaches maybe eight to ten weeks into the player's journey, sometimes the full season into the player's first year, where the coach is still saying, goalside, goalside, get goalside of the player. If they've not practiced their marking in their training, they're not really going to understand how they need to be preventing that player from getting the ball because that's what we're doing when we're marking. We're trying to prevent the pass from going into that player before it even happens, so that then we can go and intercept if it does. I just find the marking one a really interesting one as well, because we don't coach it enough. We assume that players are going to know to pick up the other individual from the other team. But it's something that we do have to, and you know, even further through the stages, marking we can be really detailed with. That could look very different for whatever your strategy is again. So do we mark but in a half space between two individuals? It might be that we're happy for when we're talking senior level here, but we might be happy when we've got two individuals in front of us as opposed to just the one because we're happy for them to have the overload in their defensive third, for example, because we want to be a little bit more secure in behind us. So by doing that, we're actually asking one of our individuals to mark in the half space in between the two and then use their pace on the press to get out to one individual. So we can really unpick the detail behind that there, but will that senior player have any idea how to mark the two if they've never understood at foundation phase how to just mark, mark man to man and get the right side of the player. So the detail's gonna have a spectrum of variety depending on who you're working with and what age and stage. Then we've got challenging of course. A really big one for me is about how we engage with the opposition player, the moment that we engage. So a little bit of the timing capability comes in again. Obviously, there's going to be a big emphasis on your physical, how you get your body across the individual. That can be quite tricky for our younger players when it's not something that they've done as frequently. So giving them the opportunity to have a player maybe get that first touch past them. You know, 1v1 situations, 2v2 situations are great for the challenging aspects. So how can I get my body across the player once I've sent them a direction? So linking that pressing skill to the challenging to then win the ball back. If I'm head to head with the player and the player's taking me on head to head, when's my moment? So judging the trigger moments from my opposition player as to when they've maybe made a bad touch that I can go in and take a steal or have they let the ball get a little bit further ahead of their feet and is that my moment to go. So all these bits of detail around challenging. And then our final piece, go on Jamie, what's my final? Recovering and recovering. A brilliant one again, like we said earlier, one that often gets missed because players don't see this naturally. For me, that's my experience that players don't always see this naturally and even at, you know, I've worked with senior players and probably another story I could have shared at the beginning with a centre mid I had who really struggled with recognising the moments to recover. And sometimes players put in their own mind, this is something I've noticed over the years, the players that struggle to recover or cover sometimes have a lack of confidence in their own physical capabilities, is what I've realized. So that ability to get back quick enough, and it's often psychological more than physical, if I'm honest with you. So I had a really interesting conversation with, and she won't mind me saying it, if she hears this, she'll know it's about her because we've laughed about it a lot over the years. I've worked with this player for two years in two different clubs and recovery runs were quite a big area of development. And we worked together on really unpicking why that became an area of difficulty. Because an outstanding central defensive midfielder, interception, timing of that, outstanding, didn't mind a press. So I knew had the physical attributes to be able to do it, but just wasn't either recognizing the moments or didn't want to do it. And we got to the point that it was the psychological of, they've already passed me. They've already got beyond me. How am I going to be able to get back in now? And it's that defeated, that resilience piece. So more of the work went around the resilience than anything else. But from a technical point of view, we're looking for them cues of our pressing teammate and how we look to cover in the space that they've left behind. And a really good one to get players to think about that is recognizing and anticipating danger. Because it's really difficult for players to understand positionally where that recovery or the cover happens. But the reference point is always your goal. It's always your defensive goal. So when you're thinking about a recovery run, no matter your position, it's the safety for the next individual in reference to my goal. So we're bringing scanning into this now as well. Are they even defensively? I know when people think about scanning, they think about their offensive actions, they think about scanning to receive and scanning to pass my next pass. They don't think about the scanning when we're defending. We have to scan just as much. We have to scan to see where our goal is. We have to scan to see where the ball is and we have to scan to see where our goal is, we have to scan to see where the ball is and we have to scan to see where the space is that we need to cover into. So that's across every role across the pitch, you know, your full back, they're trying to cover around for you, for your centre back, you've got your CDM who's trying to cover into the gap in front of your centre back or next to your centre back. You've even got your strikers trying to recover back into shape as well. So it's happening all over the pitch, but do we unpick the detail for players to be able to do that. So hopefully I've given enough detail to kind of unpick if they're planning for that.

[Jamie]

Yeah, I was going to say that was a challenging question that would tend to go through really very well.

[Emily]

It's a good one though because at least we have spent a lot of time focusing on some of the others. So at least there's a little takeaway if somebody's focusing on a different course skill this week.

[Louise]

I'm sure everybody will really appreciate the detail that you gave there. How do you help players transfer those skills from training to matchday?

[Emily]

Yeah, I mean, with everything with match day, we want it to be prior knowledge. We don't want new knowledge on match day. So for me the fact that we've covered it in training makes it a lot easier. We just want three clear, the way that I work is three clear match day points around that topic. If that's our topic for the week at senior or professional development phase, then it might be that we've covered an overarching strategy and tactic or overall aim in possession out of possession. I'd still only narrow that down to a maximum of two for each so that we're not overloading players but being really clear on what you want them to see. Can we give them a task, you know, if it's our younger players can we give them a really a real clear target that we want them to go after in relation to that skill so if it is receiving to finish can we celebrate that when they've been able to receive from an aerial pass as opposed to one along the floor and discussing those kind of things with them prior to the game but definitely nothing new, keep it really really clear and concise from from whatever they've taken from the session.

[Jamie]

Now we've got some quickfire questions for you now Emily. If you could give grassroots coaches one key message about developing core skills, what would it be?

[Emily]

Ensure you have clarity in the intention so that all of your detail can ump in it.

[Louise]

Which player best demonstrates one of the core skills in today's game and why?

[Emily]

A fantastic player for the moment I think Lucy Bronze. Outstanding receiving skills. So when you think about the variety of positions Lucy Browns can find herself in, her ability to be able to time her movement to receive in the final third situations is outstanding. I mean, that's how she's scored so many goals as a fullback as well, because her timing to be able to receive and then follow up with her next action is fantastic. You don't get, for me, the best players when it comes to receiving, they always follow with an outstanding next action. And that's why I think Lucy Bronze does brilliantly well. You see her in the fullback position, outstanding receiving on it, outside of her foot so that she's always very positive, always wants to go forward. We often see, we can see from fullbacks at times that, you know, they'll take that negative receiving first touch backwards. Lucy will always look to open out and take that first touch forward and then to be able to do it in the final third as well, I think just showcases how fantastic her receiving capabilities are.

[Jamie]

Can you finish this sentence, a good session for developing core skills always includes...

[Louise]

Clarity. And how can coaches challenge players to use the core skills creatively?

[Emily]

I think it comes down to the variety piece for me. If we want players to be creative with their core skills, we need to allow them to have ownership of them and design sessions that allow for lots of variety. And the variety comes from the way that the game's been designed. The game is designed to set up lots of different problems and ever-changing problems. So we need to make sure that our practices offer for lots of different problems and lots of different situations. Our job as the coach is to just give the players the skills to be able to go and make their own decisions. So that's how they become creative by giving them the ownership. We'll just give them a few of the skills to go and be creative with them.

[Jamie]

Now, looking back at everything we've discussed today, can you summarise the key top tips that you want coaches to take away?

[Emily]

Yeah, make sure that we are really clear. Core skills are a huge, a huge topic. Just one core skill could be a huge topic. So be really clear in what you want to bring out from that core skill. That would be my number one. The second piece is, does your practice design allow for lots of the repetition of it? Because if it does, that's when you get that creativity from your player to go and try, go and make errors, go and make mistakes, have no fear of doing that and learn, just learning in the moment. And then my third one is the game is going to be your best driver. We said it before in the practices, the game allows naturally for all of these core skills to come out. That's why they're at the heart of it for individuals. So if the game's going to be your biggest driver, allow them the opportunity in the game and just give real clear focus to what you want to bring out of each of the core skills.

[Louise]

Sarah McKenzie-Hall And if you were to give someone who's new to core skills or kind of this level of detail about them, what kind of challenge would you set for them as the first thing that they might try and do?

[Emily]

My challenge to everybody would be look at one core skill you want to develop and then using your six capabilities, write down three to four clear coaching points that underpin that core skill for what you're trying to bring out. That would be my challenge for everybody because if you can do that, you've already got a picture in your mind of what you want to see and then you'll be able to go into your session to one, observe and look for what that is and to be able to give some detail to your players as well.

[Jamie]

Brilliant. Now I just want to say that if anybody who's tuning in to this does want to learn more about the core skills, we do have two webinars coming up that will interest you. I believe there's one in January looking at the in possession core skills and one in February looking at the out of possession core skills. So keep an eye on our channels for those or head to the ongoing learning tab on our website if you want to sign up to attend them live. Well we are coming up to the end of the show now, Emily, but it does mean it is time for our swift session feature.

[Louise]

Yes, so I'm sure you're very used to this one now, but we're going to give you 30 seconds and we're going to ask you to explain a session idea to us in those 30 seconds. Are you up for that? Absolutely, let's go. Okay, I'll show you this and then when you see the timer appear you can begin.

[Emily]

Okay, we're going to go down the intercepting route. Imagine you have two goals in the middle of a 5v5 pitch, two mini goals. The ball starts with one team that are one side of the pitch, other team at the other side of the pitch. I play the ball in to try and score in one of the mini goals. My opposing team come out to make a first interception to stop that going into the goal. They then become the attacking team that then are attacking my goal, which then means that I become the intercepting team. So in a 2v1 situation. There we go. It went very fast. It always goes fast. I always find that the trickiest part.

[Louise]

Do you want to add any more context to it now that the time is off and the pressures?

[Emily]

Yeah, it's for me what we said earlier about trying to find a variety of ways to showcase the or demonstrate model best practice of a core skill to players. Sometimes we can start the practice with what will feel like an isolated moment of the skill. So that's why I really like this practice because it basically starts with one ball and then we continue the game in a more realistic situation. So when we play the ball into that first mini goal, we have that timing of the run for the interception from the other team without really any opposition at that moment. So players then can really just focus on the intercepting detail without anything else going on. But that becomes the trigger for the full flow of the game. So we've still got the ball rolling time, but the detail is there for them to understand intercepting and they see the clear visual, they see the clear picture and then they can get into what that looks like when they go into the game. So they'll start to go towards the other goal and then it becomes the team that have just played it in and now looking to intercept while they're 2v1. Brilliant.

[Louise]

Yeah, I like that.

[Jamie]

And also it works on like what you're saying, like in terms of what happens next.

[Emily]

Absolutely.

[Jamie]

Well, thank you very much for your time today Emily, we always love having you on the show, hopefully you've enjoyed it and given your coaching advice and plenty of top tips for the course kills.

[Emily]

Yeah absolutely, no I've really enjoyed it, thank you.

[Jamie]

Absolutely. Right, well that is all we do have time for today but don't forget to check out the description for the transcription of this episode and for all the links to our platforms. As always you can head to the England Football community to post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or you can drop them in the comments section for this episode.

[Louise]

Yes, we'd love to help you out so please do send your questions in. We'll be back soon with an episode all about reflecting on the season so far, so if you haven't already, hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss it. From all of us at England Football Learning, thanks for listening.