As pre-season training begins in earnest the boys return to Bodymoor Heath for their first taste of life under Alex McLeish. I await the inevitable press reports on how happy/unhappy the players are with the new regime and training methods. The arrival of Gerard Houllier last season saw the introduction of twice daily training sessions, complaints form senior players and the possible knock-on effect of numerous injuries, however that may just be co-incidence. Players wishing themselves to be considered at the elite end of their profession shouldn’t have any difficulty in two sessions a day. Olympic track and field athletes train 6 hours a day, elite rowers put in three sessions a day.
I will be interested to see how McLeish goes about his first few weeks with the squad and what sort of coaching philosophy he has. There have been several articles recently appear in print media regarding Andre Villas-Boas’ arrival at Chelsea and the immediate impact he intends to have on his squad. His intention to have the team train twice a day but stay at a local hotel between the morning and afternoon sessions may seem a little full-on but is clearly designed to bring the squad closer together. He has also removed the distractions of family, friends, agents and even hairdressers from their Cobham facility.
As with Fabio Capello’s regime with England, the players will be expected to eat and socialise together. Lateness to training and the use of mobile phones resulting in a system of financial penalties (however fining a player earning over £100,000 a week seems pretty pointless).
Will Mcleish feel the need to be so hard-line with his new charges? In some respects you would hope the discipline of a professional athlete would already be there and he would not need to. Which leads me to his philosophy.
Sir Clive Woodward, the World Cup wining England Rugby coach who presided over the most ever successful period of English rugby, holds the view that to get the best out of players they have to be treated like the best. To that end his squads were travelling everywhere first class and accommodated in the best hotels whilst touring. They had access to top quality facilities and unrivalled technical support. Would this approach work in B6?
To stay with rugby, Warren Gatland, whilst at London Wasps held a slightly different view. He and his coaching team kept their training sessions very short, intensive and specific. No individual session lasted longer than an hour and players were actively encouraged to follow other interests outside of the club. What resulted was the most successful period the club ever had, both domestically and in Europe.
It may seem pointless comparing different sports but it would take a short-sighted coach to ignore successful ways of working with players from other sports to get the best out of them.
I hope McLeish’s approach takes bits form each of the above. The direct copying of a certain model would probably fail as every club is different, however if he can strike the right balance of discipline, specificity and intensity in his training, develop a strongly bonded squad and essentially have the workplace a professional but fun place to be I don’t think he can go too wrong. Woodward and Gatland achieved a balance of authority and approachability as coaches to which their players responded in spectacularly positive fashion. The same can be said in many respects of Ferguson, Wenger and Guardiola (Mourinho is just an enigma and an article all to himself!).
Good luck Mr McLeish. I will be watching with interest.
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