Monk

Delivered a coaching session yesterday; had a ten year old refuse to play on the same team as a 'scummer'. Strangely the player was wearing a Man City shirt. Worst thing about this, it was ten year old girls football.

What do you make of this version MLG?

Has Icardi been suspended by the club or just stripped of the captaincy?

2-1 up, Olomola.

Not in the age groups 5-16, players aren't considered as being position specific with the exception of goalkeepers which also opens another can of worms. A certain Championship club will only sign an academy goalkeeper if they have a current or projected height of 6ft 2. What is ludicrous with this is some goalkeepers maybe 5'11 but have a better jump reach than keepers that are taller than this (Navas at Madrid has a jump reach of over 9ft)plus projected growth spurts are never accurate. Academy kids up until the age of 13 will play a variety of different positions and in all three columns of the pitch, this will help lay the foundations of being an all rounded footballer, then in the older teens the traits are 'sculpted & tailored' to the players strengths. Put it this way if I'm a ten year old player that only plays centre back - I will only learn how to play with the game in front of me, receiving the ball square at most times and dealing with plain sighted runners (on the shoulder or a player running at me). If I also play as a CM I will learn how to play with 360 degrees capability, a number of receiving principles, overloaded situations. When that player is 22 and playing in a pro game hopefully they will now be confident enough to revert back to the experiences they had as a child and how to deal with it .. we want players that will be confident in any state of the game; in possession, out of possession and transition. It really is an interesting world, so many aspects to consider, biological background, culture, current ability, personality traits and then the most important the scouts prejudice.. http://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-gladwells-10000-rule-2014-7?IR=T http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26384712 http://changingthegameproject.com/the-10000-hour-myth/ I highlighted culture above as professionally I believe this is key to creating intelligent players. For those that read Dennis Bergkamp's autobiography, he talks about a culture where he would play with a ball and a wall and deliberately watch how the ball would rotate, react on certain parts of the wall - this effecitvely enhanced his shot/passing selection. We as a country have become so PC, we don't have children playing out on the streets/cul de sacs, adjusting to potholes, the improvised pitch markings, the uneven slope. We are (parents and majority of GR coaches) so keen to have players playing a mini professional version of the adult game, they demand better facilities and conditions. We now have a trade off... Dangermouth, at the risk of me boring you to death, I would always pick talent over physique. Talent is more adaptable than physique (I can't find the paper that helps evidence this). As for older vs newer techniques, it has to be bit of both but I cannot emphasise how paramount the 'good learner' part is in young talent development and identification. Again prejudice falls into this, people assume a good learner is the clean cut, squeaky clean image, doesn't argue back and has their hand up at every opportunity - this couldn't be further from the truth. I will go into more detail later on as I have a session to go and deliver in twenty minutes. Love the points you make about South America and Fraser Forster!

Commentary on match days now for free according to ****ter.

10,000 hours has been adapted into bit of a myth, it's now considered as 10,000 experiences. Some might say tit for tat but books such as the talent code and sports gene explain it better than my post would. My current role is around player identification in the 8-11's age group and you won't believe the split with 'scouts' ; some are your generic old school dinosaurs that claim to 'just know' if a player has something about them whilst you have a lot of young cocky out of uni who look into the psychological aspects of how much the player is a good learner Some clubs look for athletes and look to develop them into footballers and some clubs look for good learners of any size as they believe they will be easier to develop with the clubs ethos (Barcelona being the main example). It's a little bit naughty of Saints to claim they're the only club doing this, I've been aware of Sheffield United (who by the way have a fantastic academy and really do things the right way but that's a post for another day) have been doing this for a few years. I love the thought process behind it (academy kids can be real hit or miss in terms of grounded or arrogance.)

Redmond is a 10 or a winger not a striker. Go with Forster Cedric - Fonte - VVD - Bert Hoj-Romeu-Tadic -Redmond/Davis Long Austin

Henry LOL

A few people I know of, have gone for this

For those of you that are EE customers or have one in the household, you can now get BT sport on your mobile and or laptop for free for three months. Might come in handy tonight.

No assumption made my friend.

Bit of gossip; apparently Kat met Chinese personnel at Lime Wood last week. It was all very hush hush. Could be anything....

Hard-Fi

As with Reed, would benefit from a years loan in the Championship. (Obviously won't happen).

Officiating aside; good start for 25 minutes, looked to actually have a purpose when in possession. Its no secret that I amongst many feel we've been poor in the market especially in the striker department. I still cannot get my head around how we had our most successful season on and off the pitch last season; inevitably we lost players but we replaced them with cheaper alternatives (doesn't necessarily mean they wont pay off in time). If Les & co are serious about kicking on, even if we kept Sadio, Victor etc we would have still needed to add to that group. I have an uneasy feeling about this season.

A young Chad Kroger or early 00's Chris Jericho

What the **** was that?

Yes, by a country mile.

There's a massive trend with the new breed of ITK's. Their posts are calculated guests, swayed by the traffic of updates on social media. Those posting, he was at Staplewood or the formalities are being tied up as exclusives or snippets, are just using what appears to be public knowledge and spinning it off as their own. It's apparent Boufal will be announced as a Saints player within the next few days. As AR-10, Guan, K Bilky and Le Goddard will vouch, Saints have changed their conduct regarding incomings and the personnel that know. Hence why very little information now gets out.

How about Daniel Sturidge?

WOW. You are now officially banned from posting anything football related ever again.

Good god, Austin one of the worst footballers I've ever seen. No intelligence what so ever.

According to SSN, fee would be in excess oF 20MILLION POUNDS.

Does this not count?this was the last legitimate thing I heard with any validation. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?52510-CONFIRMED-Mane-joins-Liverpool-for-%A334m-%A32m-addons&p=2358230#post2358230