What a fantastic training session we had last night. As I said to the team afterwards, it was the best session this calendar year..
At the start we talked briefly about what went wrong at the previous game & I identified that, unlike us, the opposition seemed to play to a team plan & each knew what the others were going to do next.
So, with that in mind we set up a 4 box practise with one team playing one way & the other team playing counter to them. Once they had got really good at this & could keep the ball moving for ages without losing the ball, I progressed the session on by putting 2 middle players in the centre of our four boxes. I then gave the team the instruction that a pass "inside" to a central player should always be their first option. Then the game restarted. The middle players had to work very hard to be 'open ' for four corners at once & the corner players then had two options. I was very pleased with how the lads picked this up so we then introduced a defender in each corner box to make it even harder. The players responded really well to this & began to play one touch passes inside to the middle players.
After a short break & a pitch reset, we then went into a game scenario but with wide zones and end zones marked out. The instructions were clear: every move must include a pass to the wide zone and the next pass should be inside. If you win the ball back from the opposition, you should work the ball back to your end zone before trying to score. In essence - demonstrate what you just practised but in a game situation. Again, the play was very good & quick. I had two new lads in the session who will be joining next year and they fitted in really well. They both pass the ball really well & look to support other players. Neither of them is greedy on the ball.
It was very refreshing to come away from a session felling like the squad really learnt something & had progressed. Despite getting hammered almost every week on match day!
It's our first week of the New Forest League this weekend & I hope that with our new skills from this session & a bit of luck, we might be more competitive.
