My time spent at Fulham Academy

[jake_cohen]

Recently I was able to spend a day at Fulham Academy as I'd come out from Australia. The club were so accommodating and helpful in assisting me. They allowed me great access and yeah I think the club have a very bright future as they have some great players coming through!

Fulham

This was the club which allowed me to see the most, with the club being very open to me coming in. I was able to see their high flying under 18's team, currently 4th in their league (behind Arsenal and Chelsea), in a training session. The session was run by Steve Wigley, Head of Academy Coaching and former assistant coach at Manchester City and England U21's, and Colin Omogbehin, under 18's head coach. The standard that was set in the training session was very high but this shows why they're doing so well in the league, as they are able to meet those expectations. The session focus was around short passing and moving defenders around to see if you can create overlaps in wide areas, a great session.

After the session was completed, I had the chance to sit down with U16's head coach, Dan Thomas, and Fulham Youth Development Phase Manager, Ali Melloul, to discuss the next phase of their periodisation plan for their U13's-U16's age groups. The detail involved in this plan is very thorough and showed me the components which goes into such a plan, such as key individual focuses involved in each individual session for individual players. This approach is key, rather than just an overall session focus for the whole team.

I was also fortunate enough to get to sit down one on one with Academy Director, Huw Jennings. This was an invaluable experience, as he detailed the process of improving the Fulham Academy set up, culture and players over recent years. Huw was also able to give me great advice on what to focus on for my coaching journey over the coming years, something which is so valued. To get to sit down with someone like Huw one on one for almost an hour is something that very few people get to do and was such a great learning experience and something that I won't forget. I will need to put his thoughts into action now, which I intend on trying to do in 2018 and beyond.



Overall

Each club was very different but taught me very valuable things to take note of. The standard of player in which England is producing currently is outstanding, as has been seen by the World Cup results for their youth teams in recent times. This will continue to improve over time, with lots of resources being promoted into the Academies all across the country.

I have to thank all the people that allowed me to come into the Academy environments, particularly to Jack Collison, Lewis Goater and Huw Jennings, from the three clubs. It was a very enlightening experience to see the level of detail that goes into training sessions and also the set up's of the various clubs, something which would be the envy of many Australian football club's.

https://jakecohen92.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/epl-academy-experience-at-west-ham-reading-and-fulham-football-clubs/