FRA
Games to Develop Technique
by Tom Statham / Manchester United
Who is the coach? Tom Statham is an Academy Coach for Manchester United. Tom has worked at the club for over 20 years and has coached some of Man Utd’s finest youth products including Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard.
Session Focus: How we can use different types of games to develop a multitude of techniques.
Quote of the Session: Question from audience member: “What are the three most common things you find yourself saying to 8 year olds?”
Response: “1) Yes, I can tie your shoe laces! 2) Entertain me! 3) Have FUN!”
Beyond Pulse Breakdown
1) Active Participation:
Active participation (AP) is a measure of how active the players are during a practice session or game. The overall AP for this session was 58%. This is considerably high given that Tom was delivering a clinician style session for the audience. However, it was noticeable that even though Tom was engaging with the audience for most of the session, he rarely had the group inactive and stood still. They were always playing. On top of this, the majority of activities Tom delivered were game-related, ensuring maximal involvement from the group.
Interestingly when looking at the activity timeline above, approximately minute 4 to minute 15 at the start of the practice revealed the highest levels of overall group activity. It was the small-sided 4v4 games that generated this data. The only other time in the session the activity levels were this high came at the end during the two-team / three-ball game to finish!
2) Heart Rate Response
The red dial above shows that players spent on average 22 minutes at or above 80% of their maximal heart rate. This tells us that the players were working at an intensity which was sufficient to improve their fitness levels using small-sided game related practice activities.
3) Total Distance & High Speed Running:
In the blue dial (total distance) we can see that the players covered on average a distance of just over 3790 meters and that 28% of this distance (green dial) was carried out at high speed i.e at a speed that is comparable to what they would be expected to run at in a game scenario. Given that much of this session reflected the game demands of the game itself, it should be of no surprise that players spent significant distance running at high speed!
Come and check out our booth #1529 for more info and a greater look at this session!
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