The 18-hour day

The 18-hour day
When we're away at a tournament I might wake anytime between 5-5.30am. If I'm awake I might watch footage from one of the games and after that I might go for a run.

A lot of our staff exercise early in the morning as it's the time they get to themselves before the players wake up. So there’s always a cycling group and a running group each morning. Exercising early in the day is crucial as it's a series of meetings, decisions and discussions for the rest of the day.

The working day regularly goes from six in the morning all the way through to 11/11.30 in the evening when we might still be looking at set-pieces, planning training or discussing team selection or tactics. Bar pausing for training or meals, there’s something on the go all the time.

The schedule
At the Toulon tournament in May the fixture schedule dictated that we were always a day before or a day after a game. That meant each morning was set aside for recovery with our main training session set for 4pm. Team meetings would take place around the practical activity – a part of the programme we tried to keep fresh and varied, sometimes including video analysis but sometimes based around an informal chat.

In addition to team meetings with the players there are daily meetings with the medical staff, video analyst and the other coaching staff.

Through discussions with the video analyst we would clarify the content of forthcoming team meetings including the messages we wanted to debrief from our previous game, the opposition footage we wanted to show ahead of our next game and also how all the parts would fit together to inform our training.

The content of training would be decided in daily meetings with Steve Holland (U21 assistant coach), Martin Thomas (GK coach) and John Iga (sports scientist) with a focus on how each area fits together for the players benefit.

Finally, there are daily media duties and press conferences and also calls to make to senior figures at the FA as well as calls to the other national coaching staff at different events.

Decision-making
Throughout the day there are constant decisions to be made with many discussions on team selection, tactical approach and the content of our training. All these discussions require consideration and analysis of the opposition, an understanding of the stage of the tournament as well as an assessment of the players’ fitness, availability and mood.

Often these discussions lead to more questions: do we need to rotate the players to keep them fresh? How can we be sure of a player's fitness for the game? What should be the intensity of training? Reviewing the game and training footage brings more decisions: what is the most relevant information to feedback to the players?

Then there are lots of logistic considerations: what time are we leaving the hotel? What is the duration of training? What is the dress code for certain parts of the day?

As soon as the final whistle of the game goes more decisions follow: what is the content of the players debrief in the dressing room? What messages are we going to give in the media? Are the substitutes still going to train after the game? Should we stick to the plan or should we change it? What is right for the players?

It's natural that situations will occur that are not planned for and so the programme has to constantly change, but if you work off a plan it's easier for the change to happen. If there's no plan in the first place then the change can become problematic.

Know yourself
You’ve got to know yourself. Whilst we're away at a tournament there will be times when you may need to go to your room for twenty minutes without answering the phone. These are crucial moments to recharge, reflect and think things through.

Managing your energy is crucial and for a head coach the quality of your work is so important. You can’t draw from the well all the time, so sometimes you have to put something back in.

Pauses in the day can allow you to plan what you want to say in the next meeting or consider who it's important to speak to during that day and what needs to be said. The busy schedule dictates that you can’t have long discussions with all of the players every day, so you have to think about the key individuals and the key messages on particular days.

Help rationalise performance
Following a defeat most players focus on their faults. If a player did eight good things in a game, but made a mistake which gave a goal away they will almost always focus on the mistake. Appearing to suffer and sulk after a bad performance is part of football culture. I did it myself as a player but it's not one of my beliefs as a coach and looking back, it definitely didn’t make me a better player.

I don’t like losing and will not accept losing without finding out the reasons why, but the tournament environment demands that you have to move on very quickly. It's important to take the lessons you have learned from the game, talk about them, but mentally you’ve got to move on before you return to the training ground and begin preparing for the next game.

You can’t hide the disappointment that sometimes comes with performance, but there's a psychological process to understanding and rationalising it. The players’ experience of the event needs to be discussed and framed appropriately.

Use the experience of your staff

Day-to-day decisions are based on your own experience but also on the experience of the staff around you. I'm fortunate that we have a great U21 backroom staff who are hugely experienced and knowledgeable in their own fields. As a head coach or a manager you appoint good staff and you should listen to their experience and knowledge.

In this regard, we're extremely fortunate to have Chelsea’s Steve Holland as our coach with the U21 squad. Steve’s knowledge and experience in the game – at both youth development and senior level – is second to none. Steve has a significant influence on the way we play and how we train and is great example of how we try to utilise and empower experts in their own field.

Ultimately the head coach has to make the final decision, but if you don’t seek the opinion of others and consider what they say then I don’t believe it creates a healthy environment for the head coach to be challenged – something which I think is important in a progressive environment.

Give your staff confidence and show them that you trust them

Staff meetings don’t always need to be formal. Quite often I like to speak to the U21 staff more casually in a more relaxed atmosphere. There are times for formal meetings when key information and the logistics of the day need to be communicated but my approach is not to micro-manage the staff. All the backroom staff are trusted to do their job because they are very good at what they do. In the same way that you give your players confidence, you have to give your staff confidence and show them that you trust them.

Find time for the whole group

As the head coach, you have to make time for the players and it's crucial to have the one-to-one chats with the players. It's the same approach with the staff – I’ll try and sit with different people at lunch, have different conversations throughout the day and try and get a feeling for the mood of the group and also get to know individuals better.

Reflection and review

After the event all aspects of the programme are debriefed with the other England age-group national coaches. All the aspects of the training schedule will be shared, including the rationale behind the session content, how it linked to the tactical objectives for the fixture and how it was informed by our analysis and opposition scouting.

We will then debrief the game, showing some clips from the footage, sharing our reflections on the performance. It's an important opportunity for the team of national coaches to question each other and to share ideas and experiences, something which can only benefit each coach in their future work.