I've stumbled across this..........

[Ric Flair]

I was searching for something on the internet about Alan Hill our ex-academy director and found this massive article with Peter Taylor and soom goon asking him questions. It's good to hear that Taylor wasn't responsible for choosing Alan Hill as academy director as that would mean i'd have to admit he did something right at this club!

http://www.le.ac.uk/crss/sf-review/00-01/01article5.html

Developing Football Talent

Patrick Murphy Interviews Peter Taylor, Former England Under 21 Coach, the Manager of Leicester City and Coach to the Full England Team.

Background: Peter Taylor enjoyed exceptional success as coach of the England Under 21s from August 1996 to June 1999. Paul Hayward described him as "'the most successful England Under 21 manager in history" (Telegraph 8/6/99). Of his 24 matches in charge, he won 14, drew 6 and lost 4.

The scouting side

PM: Does the movement of managers tend create a problems for them with regard to scouting networks?

PT: Yes. Major Problems. This is because these contacts are personal ones. One of the reasons I asked Colin Murphy to come here as Football Coordinator was because of the quality of his contacts.

PM: So you're saying that an incoming manager and his staff tend bring their scouting networks with them? You don't inherit them from the previous manager?

PT: It may happen, but we haven't inherited any this time. If Colin was to leave Leicester City, the club would be well advised to try to keep his scouting network. But this wouldn't be easy because most scouts haven't got contracts with clubs and they will probably want to go with Colin because they enjoy working with him.

PM: How do you assess the quality of your scouting network? How do you monitor its quality?

PT: I've brought 3 scouts with me and Colin has brought in 6 or 7 so their abilities have already been tried and tested. But, of course, we continue to assess these scouts in terms of their recommendations and by the players that are coming through. Our network covers the whole of the country. We keep the number of scouts relatively small because we want to be in a position to give them plenty of work. We want to make sure that they have always got games to cover and this helps us to retain their loyalty.

PM: How do you know that a scout is working for you?

PT: Well this is where the trust comes in. It's crucial that we know and trust our scouts. By this I mean that we not only trust their judgement of players, but also that we are sure that their loyalties lie with us. After all, there could be scouts out there working for 3 or more clubs.

PM: How are scouts remunerated?

PT: You have to appreciate that most scouts have got full-time jobs outside football. The majority of our scouts get paid so many pence per mile. In addition, some of them get a small retainer. There also tends to be arrangements whereby a scout will get a payment if his recommendation becomes a professional, makes the first team or gets transferred.

PM: When you go to a match to assess a particular player, on balance do you focus largely upon him or do you follow the flow of the match and simply note his contribution to the game?

PT: There are many matches that I attend where I'm not interested in a specific player. In these cases, I focus on the game as a whole. However, if we keep getting good reports on a particular player the time will come when we are serious enough for myself, Colin Murphy or Steve Butler (first team coach) to go and watch him play. In this case, we would just focus on the player in question. But you have to be a bit cagey about it because you don't want to alert everybody to your particular interest.

PM: Presumably you're also trying to assess his character as well as his playing abilities?

PT: Not only his character, but also how helpful he is to his team-mates. Does he talk to them, etc? For example, if some scouts are assessing a goalkeeper, they will often go behind the goal in order to determine whether he talks to his defenders and whether he is more involved in his own performance than the game as a whole.

PM: Nowadays there is a constant flow of football on television. How useful is this as a medium for assessing players?

PT: While televised matches can give you some appreciation of players, there's nothing like watching a game live. Even the Sky-cam tracking operation can create a false impression. You need the total picture.

PM: We often read of agents sending managers videos of the players they represent. Presumably, you're very wary of this type of approach?

PT: They are a waste of time. They just show the best of a player and often we don't know anything about the quality of the opposition.

Nurturing young players

PM: When you arrived at Leicester, how did you set about acquainting yourself with the youth development side of the club?

PT: The club immediately made it clear to me that they felt the youth development side had to be improved and they told me that there was going to be a new academy director. They asked me if I knew of anyone who would be suitable. They mentioned Alan Hill who was with Leeds United. I had met him on a number of occasion and I'd heard good reports on him and so I was confident that he would prove to be a great asset to the Leicester Academy and, I should add, I haven't been disappointed. Trial games are going on all the time and the place is really buzzing. I think that it's vital for clubs like Leicester to develop their local talent and not to have it poached by other clubs.

PM: Do you have a direct and regular input into the academy or do you concentrate on the senior players?

PT: There is only so much that I can do on the youth development side. Overall responsibility lies with the Academy Director. However, I never walk past the gym without popping in and showing an interest in what's going on. I'm also prepared to play young players and give them an opportunity and I think that my willingness to do this was influential in Alan's decision to come to Leicester.

PM: Do Alan Hill's responsibilities include establishing the coaching ethos?

PT: Yes, I leave that to Alan. Having said this, he always talks to me about it. For example, he wouldn't bring in another coach without discussing it with me. The chief coach is Steve Beaglehole. He used to be at Leeds with Alan. He talks to me about playing systems. I have also done sessions for the Academy coaches in order to demonstrate what I want and what I'm looking for.

PM: So you do try to establish some continuity between the playing systems at different levels in the club?

PT: Definitely, but this doesn't boil down to playing the same system throughout the club. It relates to the more general level of the type of football we want them to play. For example, we want them to play football right from the back.

PM: When youngsters are invited to the Academy, presumably this initiative is taken because the Academy staff judge them to have promise. Although it's not your direct responsibility, what qualities would you be looking for in these lads?

PT: Obviously, they have got to have some ability. There's got to be something about their play which suggests that, with the right coaching, they might have the makings of a professional footballer. We should never be taking on a youngster to make up the numbers. They should all have potential and express it in at least one dimension of their game. Over and above this, they should be self-disciplined. Good time-keepers, for example. They should also be good listeners and eager to learn.

PM: Managers come and go. What impact does their relatively short tenure at a club have on the priority they give to the youth development side?

PT: I think this is an area where clubs are getting better because 9 times out of 10 the academies are run separately. So increasingly it doesn't make such a difference to its operation when the manager leaves. My main job is to make sure that the first team get results. If things went wrong and the club were to sack me, the worse thing that would be likely to happen is that Colin Murphy and Steve Butler might also leave. I'm confident that most of the coaching staff would remain in post. This definitely represents an improvement on the past.

PM: A number of the larger clubs are going down the road of establishing nursery clubs. Leicester have recently established a link with Cork City FC. How did this link come about? What is the thinking behind it and would you describe it as a nursery club?

PT: We have to be careful before we call it a nursery club. Colin Murphy used to be the manager of Cork City and he felt that there was a great deal of potential talent in the area. He discussed the matter with Alan Hill and that's how the link emerged.

PM: Do you think that this will be a developing feature of the game. For example, can you imagine Leicester establishing similar links with other clubs?

PT: Yes I can because it benefits both parties. It broadens the scope of our trawling operation for young talent and Cork City gets financial help from us. Of course, I appreciate that Cork City supporters may not welcome us taking their best talent. But if we didn't do it then other big clubs would.

PM: But surely there's nothing to prevent other clubs watching Cork City and approaching the club about their more talented players? So what's the advantage of this link?

PT: You have got to have a relationship built on trust. We trust Cork City to inform us first about the emergence of promising players. At the same time, we don't want to pressurise players into coming to Leicester City if their hearts are not in it.

PM: Talking of promising talent from Cork City, one player has already come from this source, 19 year old Damien Delaney. He broke through and made his full first team debut only a few months after his arrival. This was followed by a period in which he didn't feature in the first team frame. How do you handle the frustrated expectations that may have been stimulated by such a rapid rise?

PT: This is where you're dependent on the player being capable of making a sensible assessment of the situation. For example, Delaney is a relatively inexperienced youngster and he knows that his first team opportunities have come about because of injuries to more senior players. We are of the view that he is not 100% ready to be a first team regular. You also have to be careful before throwing youngsters in at the deep end. This is particularly the case if a team is struggling. It can prove to be demoralising. Nevertheless, in this case, we're confident that Delaney is going to be a tremendous player.

Coaching in General

PM: Are you at one with what might be described as the dominant football culture? The reason I ask this question is because this culture seems to be at variance with some aspects of your managerial ethos. For example, you place an emphasis on building confidence. In contrast, football is very much a putdown culture, dominated by dressing room banter, with some players becoming particular butts of this humour. In this regard, a particular player at Leicester springs to mind and, in this case, Martin O'Neill seems to have been one of the principal instigators of the 'humorous onslaught'. This season, under your management, this player seems to be playing with much greater self-belief. He appears to be being encouraged to express himself and break out of simply the 'willing-work-horse' mode.

PT: Yes, I do like players to express themselves. But there is another side to the argument because sometimes you have to ask players to play strictly according to instructions. I know that Martin O'Neill used to say to the player you have in mind "You're no good". But he said this for a reason. He didn't want him to complicate his game. Therefore, sometimes managers say negative things for positive reasons.

PM: But, surely its swings and roundabouts. O'Neill seems to have been prepared to settle for the player in question playing an effective but, in some ways, limited role. He does not appear to have been so concerned with helping this player to explore and develop his potential.

PT: I agree. It is swings and roundabouts.

PM: In your approach to coaching what emphasis do you place upon rectifying players' weaknesses? The reason I ask this question is that it seems to me that coaching in this country has been based predominantly on developing players' strengths rather than improving the weaker aspects of their game. This finds partial expression in the extreme 1-footedness that many professionals exhibit throughout their careers. How would you respond to this observation?

PT: I take your point. I agree there are certain coaches who say to themselves that a particular player is very 1-footed, but he's quick so I'll work on his good foot. I disagree with this approach. Its important to recognise that improving weaknesses takes longer than developing strengths. Nevertheless, even when I was coaching the England players, prior to the friendly with Spain at Aston Villa's ground, I worked on their weaker feet just to impress upon them the importance of continuing to develop their all-round skills. And, as a player, I did practice what I now preach. I am naturally left-footed, but by the end of my playing career I was as strong on my right. So, in a word, I tried to work on both strengths and weaknesses.

PM: If a player has, say, natural speed, this often seems to make him too reliant on this asset. In contrast, if we take a player like Gerry Taggart. He has no real pace, but he has compensated for this by developing a good positional sense. While it is not possible to develop pace in a player like Taggart, it may be possible to slow down fast players in training with a view to cultivating a greater appreciation of positional play. For example, it might encourage them to take their nose off the ball and look around them. What is your view?

PT: Well we approach this issue in training in a rather different way. We train in such a way as to encourage players to lift their heads. I wouldn't try to find a means of slowing a quick player down. Instead, I organise games in confined spaces so that they have to get their heads up.

PM: Following on from this, in your approach to coaching, what emphasis do you place upon the development of individual as opposed to team skills? What kind of balance do you strike?

PT: The majority of my work is with the team. But practice games are of a stop and start nature and in this context I do provide individual coaching. However, in addition to this, I do give a small percentage of my time to working with individuals on a one-to-one basis.

PM: Do you give the players individual targets, in terms of their ball control, for example?

PT: No, I don't give them targets for these kinds of skills. However, along with the fitness coach, we do give them targets for, say, sprinting and fitness levels. With regard to skill levels, I see the players in training. I observe their improvements. I know that the touch of the players is 10% better than when I arrived. I also try to make training interesting by introducing little tests into these sessions.

PM: Do any of the players stay on to practice their skills in the afternoons?

PT: Absolutely. Just today I looked out of the window and there were 4 or 5 players out on the training pitch doing a little bit extra. Perhaps 2 or 3 of those players wouldn't have been there a couple of months ago. Of course, having a bigger squad, with the resultant increased competition for places, also helps to motivate them.

PM: The concept 'total football' came from the Netherlands. It involves developing the capacity to play, and feel comfortable, in a variety of positions. What emphasis do you place upon young players developing the capacity to slot comfortably into a number of positions?

PT: I've told my coaches that it wouldn't worry me if young players learnt to play within a variety of systems and the same goes for experiencing different positions. For example, it's good for a right winger to play at full-back. It will make him a more complete player because it will lead him to experience and appreciate the problems that have to be dealt with by a full-back.

PM: The next question that I want to put to you could, I think, be put to any dedicated teacher. One of your generally recognised strengths relates to the emphasis you place on developing the potential of players. You seem to derive great satisfaction from this side of your job. Cannot this coaching strength also be a weakness? Given limited resources, do you recognise in yourself any tendency to pour too much continued... effort into developing the potential of some players beyond the point where the investment is likely to be justified by the returns?

PT: No, I don't think that this is a problem for me. In my view all footballers are entitled to assume that their coach or manager will try to improve them as players. I don't think that I am guilty of over-coaching players. I focus principally on team coaching. While I might talk to individual players about specific aspects of their game, I try to avoid overloading them. But if players don't come up to my expectations they will have to move on. For example, it's not sufficient that a player should have ability, he's also got to have self-belief. If he lacks this combination of qualities, then we would part company.

PM: If you felt a player had considerable ability but lacked self-belief, how would you set about trying to instil confidence in him?

PT: That's where you have to be careful about the players you sign. Leicester isn't one of the biggest Premier League clubs, but we still get home crowds of 20,000 or so. Therefore, it's important that we try to gauge how a prospective signing might react to this kind of pressure. So before a new player walks through the door we have to gain some kind of appreciation of whether he is likely to need TLC or be taken down a peg or 2. At Leicester we have many players who have come from the lower divisions and when another player from a similar background joins the club, they know how he feels and they help him to adjust. Having said this, if over a period of time, a player's lack of self-belief is seriously inhibiting his performance then we might have to part company.

PM: The soccer culture in some continental countries seems to be distinctively different from ours. For example, the Fulham manager, Tigana, seems to have introduced a fitness and training regime which aims to encompass the entire lifestyle of the players. How do you view this type of approach?

PT: Many foreign players are tremendous professionals in terms of the way they take care of themselves and I accept the benefits of this type of approach. At the same time, they haven't got the great British spirit. For example, Mancini couldn't believe our spirit, our togetherness. I wouldn't want this type of approach to detract from the spirit which characterises our game.

PM: I'm not clear why you think that expecting players to adhere to an all-round fitness programme might be incompatible with maintaining a strong spirit. Are you hinting that it might detract from the 'laddish' culture which is prevalent in British football?

PT: Not so much laddish. What I'm saying is certainly go with foreign fitness regimes, but don't let them detract from the spirit that pervades our game. For example, when we were having a bad run over Christmas, we all went for a Chinese meal and a good laugh. Sometimes this kind of get-together is as important as a punishing training session on a Monday morning.

PM: It's not an uncommon characteristic for some players to lack the ability to concentrate for 90 minutes. Do you have any special techniques for developing in players the capacity to concentrate on their contribution to the team for the whole of the match?

PT: This is a difficult one. I put many incidents of a loss of concentration down to fitness. When players get tired they are prone to lose concentration. I also think that they are more likely to get upset if a decision goes against them when they're tired as opposed to when they're fresh. I suppose I could call on the services of a psychologist to work on their concentration. All I can do is to keep reminding them of the importance of concentration, particularly in the last 10 minutes of games. Many goals are conceded in this period and in my view it's connected with tiredness and the subsequent loss of shape.

PM: Although, is it not the case that players sometimes exhibit a lack of concentration at the beginning of games? On a number of occasions this season, Leicester seem to have started slowly and conceded an early goal.

PT: I agree. A lack of concentration can characterise how a team starts a match, but, of course, this partly relates to how the opposition play. However, I still think that it's more of a problem towards the end of games.

PM: It seems to me that many of the weaknesses of footballers could be reduced by tapping into the coaching techniques of other sports and applying them on a systematic rather than on a novelty basis. I'm thinking in terms of jumping techniques in basketball, speed off the mark and sprinting techniques in athletics, balance in gymnastics. Do you think that football coaching could benefit from being less insular? Have you any sympathy with this view?

PT: I'm in no doubt that our football could benefit from this input and I think that we are becoming more receptive. Many fitness coaches are bringing these techniques into football, including our own fitness coach. For example, as a result of this influence, I now use basketball as an aspect of my training sessions. So I think we are becoming increasingly open to the lessons that other sports have to offer.

PM: I have no need to remind you that Leicester were knocked out of the FA Cup by Wycombe. Afterwards, you were reported as saying that you didn't know what had gone wrong. Often when other managers suffer a similar experience they say such things as "my lads just weren't 'up for it'". By definition, this is a retrospective judgement. My question to you is not what do you do in order to try to ensure that your players are "up for it". My question to you is in 2 parts: firstly, how do you set about trying to determine whether or not they are 'up for it'? And, secondly, after the event, how successful do you think you are at assessing their pre-match state of mind?

PT: It's funny. I've been in quiet dressing rooms and I've been in noisy dressing rooms 15 minutes before kick off and there seems to be no obvious relationship between match performance and the level of noise. I think some players are noisy before a match in order to persuade the manager or perhaps convince themselves that they're 'up for it'. But it doesn't matter how lively a dressing room is before a game, there is no guarantee that this will be translated into a good performance. I'm not a 'crashbang- wallop' manager and nor is Mr Erikkson. Prior to the England games, the dressing rooms were very quite, but this didn't prevent the players from doing their job. It has to be a happy balance. You have got to go round the players having gee-up conversations. You've also got to vary what you say. It would be counter productive if I said the same thing before every match.

PM: Understandably you've drifted into talking about what you do in order to try to ensure that the players are up for it. Am I right in assuming that you are conceding that it is extremely difficult to determine whether or not they are up for a particular game? How else are we to explain the fact that so many losing managers, in post-match interviews, employ the phrase - 'my lads just weren't up for it'?

PT: A lot of this has to do with what goes on after the match has kicked off. I'm sure that in most matches all 22 players are up for the game. It's what happens after the whistle blows that counts. Some players can be fully prepared for the game, but their confidence can drain away with just one bad pass.

PM: You haven't had the most orthodox path into Premier League management. Do you think that the difficulties that you have encountered have made you more aware of the importance of building confidence through the coaching process?

PT: I had a manager in Malcolm Allison who always made me feel as if I was the best player in the world and I always appreciated this as a player. When I started out in management, I'm not sure that I took this lesson on board as quickly as I might have done. When I was appointed coach of the England Under 21s, I found myself in a position where it was particularly appropriate to put this lesson into practice. They were not my players so I was not going to be critical. My approach was to praise them and to encourage them to go out and enjoy the game. While the club situation is different, in that there has to be a strong element of discipline, I still try to make players feel good about themselves.

The above transcript is based on a series of interviews with Peter Taylor which took place between September 2000 and April 2001. 28

[Sly]

Peter almost sounds like he knows what he's on about!!!

To be fair to PT, besides the fact he overpaid for overrated players, I don't think he's a bad coach.

[Jon the Hat]

Peter almost sounds like he knows what he's on about!!!

To be fair to PT, besides the fact he overpaid for overrated players, I don't think he's a bad coach.

Agreed. I wouldn't trust him to buy a newspaper, or negotiate a new contract with the receptionist, but his record with U21's says he can get players performing. If he had been given decent players (ie a Director of football had signed them) we might still be in the Prem. Who knows.

[Guest seanfox778]

i also agree which is why he should stick to managing national sides