The hardest thing about losing fixtures to postponement is keeping the squad sharp. No matter how motivated and energetic a manager, coaching staff, and playing squad are, week after week of postponements, delays, and no competition, makes for stale training sessions and it can be a struggle to get the focus back when the season does begin.
I think a lot of factors are working in our favor, and it shows in the quality of training this week. First, we do have a strong and motivated squad. Without the baseline commitment from the players, nothing else can happen. The manager and club secretary have been proactive in getting training facilities for us, so while a lot of clubs aren't working at all, we are still working, and though we haven't been able to test ourselves in a match, improving. Finally the timing of myself coming on as First-team Coach and Luke as Assistant Head Coach probably couldn't be better. The players are hearing new voices, all of which are coherent (and it's really neat to be on a staff that really sees the same issues and largely the same solutions) but our presentation is always just a bit different from each member of the coaching staff, and the players are really responding.
We have done a lot of five-a-side competitive play, and the players are really stepping up and playing to win. For the most part, we have been coaching at breaks, just giving a few observations, and maybe making a quick point to an individual player during the session. This past week, we shifted gears a little bit and ran a more structured session on Friday, continuing to work on speed of play and field awareness.
I have noticed that players here tend to be a little more set in the way they want a training session to be run, but they have been willing to trust me as I structure a session a little differently than to what they are accustomed. It brings up an important point in any coaching situation: credibility. It is inherent when teaching that the teacher is placing the student in a situation where her competency is challenged, and in some way, asked to move outside of her comfort zone. There has to be a basis of trust in the relationship between player and coach for that learning experience to occur. The weaknesses of a player are not exposed to belittle them, but rather to improve them. Without trust in the coach's personality, as well as professional credibility that there is something the coach has to teach, players will resist the teaching moment.
Thus far, the Preston North End Women have extended me that trust, and on Friday especially, I could see positive results. As we began playing a multi-goal game, the first mini-game to three took about five minutes. In the stoppage, I pointed out our movement off the ball was not good, and we needed to get that going in order to find balls into the seams. The players took it to heart, and the second mini-game was less than ninety seconds before five goals were scored (3-2 scoreline.) At that point, we could begin teaching the vision, awareness, and game intelligence issues that we wanted to improve. It was rewarding to be able to move to some "higher level" points such as using the ball as a vehicle of communication. It has been awhile since I have had a group of players technically sound and tactically astute enough that I can begin introducing some of the higher level thought process type of points into the session (without forcing it.)
Coming up, we have fitness testing for the Christmas break, then we reconvene to prepare for our FA Cup Second Round tie with Rochedale. Hopefully the snow will thaw over the Christmas break and we will continue to build from our recent training and apply what we've worked on into creative play in the full-size game.
