All about the player
Former Luton Town manager, Graeme Jones, spoke to The Boot Room about his coaching approach with professional players, why he would never stop the flow of a practice and how his manner on the training pitch has changed over the years.
Use every coaching style
I have always believed that the power is in the organisation and the progression of the session, rather than the coach trying to push and push the players.
There is a time to be demanding and I can do that no problem, but I think using different coaching styles is vitally important in order to get the best out of your players.
You can’t be on top of the players all the time. On reflection, I probably used to be 50/50 between a more considered approach and shouting. Now it is 90/10. You have to be demanding of players but ultimately you need to draw on every coaching skill, rather than just shouting, to get the best out of them.
Let talent be demanding of you
When you are working with players that are already motivated you don’t have to demand from them, they demand from you.
Before we [Jones and Martinez] were at Everton we had always been on the front foot, leading all training sessions and had been creative, demanding and driven in the work that we had put on. Then we arrived at Everton and the players were demanding and driven with us as a coaching staff.
It was challenging at the beginning; it was a different motivation. After a while you come to terms with it and you think how refreshing it is that you don’t have to do that anymore. It challenges you in a different way.
Keep time and the score to add competition
I always try to make the sessions competitive, always. Keeping the score and timing different parts of the practice adds to the competitive element. We will time how long players retain the ball and reward them with additional turns at keeping the ball.
In games we will give the players targets. For example: six balls to try and score a goal and six balls to keep a clean sheet. Players are competitive by nature, but these things help keep them competitive.
Test the players technically and tactically
The good thing about our style of play is that it is with the ball. It is attractive to play and technically tests the players every day. As an approach to working effectively with players, that is probably the strongest tool we have got.
Everything we have ever done is with the ball. Generally all the players we have worked with at different clubs have always enjoyed our style of training, and I think working with the ball helps.
Being stimulated tactically is another thing the players want. At Premier League level you have players whose drug is to improve and technically and tactically, we can feed them that.
Improvement is an addiction. The top player wants to improve individually and as a team. That is your job and you have to stimulate them.
Everything we do is about the player. 100% from the word go. It is not about the coach, it is about the player
Never stop the flow of a session
When I played the style of coaching was “stop, stand still”. That was accepted back then.
Our approach is to never stop a session. We will coach in between parts of the practice from the side of the pitch, or when the session is going on or during a drinks break. But we never ever stop sessions whilst they’re in flow. Top players are just like everyone else and just want to play and it has to be match tempo as well. It needs to be realistic otherwise you are not going to improve the player.
Educate intelligence
Our whole concept of work is about educating players. Our philosophy is to give the player the intelligence to pick the right thing to do at the right moment. That could be a run into space. That could be dribbling the ball. That could be a 40-yard pass. It could be a forward pass. It could be keeping the ball with three minutes to go and you are 1-0 up.
Players first
Everything we do is about the player. 100% from the word go. It is not about the coach, it is about the player. You have to do anything it takes to get the best out of the players and to maximise the players' ability. That is all that matters. It is not about the coach being centre of attention.
Help strengths flourish
I have seen top players train and play without direction and they don’t look like top players. You have to give players direction. You need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. You need to put them in a position where their ability, the talents they have been given, can come to fruition.
Education will take you further
Education is all the game is about. Sometimes you get the coach that wants the results and sometimes you get the coach that wants to educate. Long-term it is all about escaping from the results and educating them, that is what is going to take you further.
A relationship based on helping the players
Our approach to working with individual players is always based around: “What can we do for you?”
We open up a dialogue and tell the players what we’ve been thinking, what we think we can improve, what we’ve seen. We ask them what they think about it all and then tell them that we will put them in certain situations where it enhances their strengths.
In the past all we’ve ever done is talk about players’ weaknesses. The game is about their strengths. Sometime you need to balance people’s weaknesses with other people’s strengths in order to get the best out of them.
Graeme Jones, who was speaking during his time at Everton, left Luton Town in April 2020. He has also previously been part of the coaching setup at Swansea, Wigan, the Belgian national team and West Brom. Article image courtesy of Michael Zemanek/BPI/REX.