January 29, 2018, by brzmjb1

Performance Men’s Football receive England youth team training session

Last Friday, University of Nottingham Men’s Football team received a defensive coaching session from England “out of possession” coach Andy Edwards.

A former first team manager at Leyton Orient, Edwards currently works with the England U18-23 age groups, whilst advising Gareth Southgate on defensive strategies and the development of young talent for the full national squad.

Hosted at Jubilee Sports Centre under floodlights, the session concentrated primarily on shape, movement and organisation whilst out of possession and Edwards was pleased with the quality on show during the session, “It’s been a really good evening working with the University of Nottingham team. There is some real talent here and they picked up the concepts very quickly indeed. I’m looking forward to coming back at some point of the season and will watch their progress with interest.”

Speaking after the session, University of Nottingham‘s Director of Football, Nick Tester said: “It was a tough session. The squad were definitely put through their paces but every advantage we can we gain from top level defensive coaching is huge bonus. We have some really big games coming up and tonight’s coaching will challenge how we approach fixtures and manage games when we don’t have the ball. Andy has great experience in the game, particularly with youth players and hopefully our team is inspired by both his and England’s U20 World Cup success.”

Edwards’ specific role within the FA is to work as an out-of-possession coach across a range of age-groups. This is one of the four core aspects of the so-called England DNA, the others being in-possession work, transitions and formations.

The new role has come with considerable success, with Edwards forming a key part of Paul Simpson’s coaching staff behind the England team that won the U20 World Cup in 2017.

Speaking last year to Sky Sports about the niche coaching role within the England setup, the former Southend, Birmingham and Peterborough defender said “We have an out-of-possession coach, myself, and an in-possession coach,”. “People question what that’s about a little bit and it gets derided from people both inside and outside the game. But it’s just a real focus on a specific element of the game that’s one of the most important elements too.

“It’s no different from having a manager and two coaches but there’s a real focus there. We work on the training ground on certain things. Preventing teams from scoring is a big part of that. For spells against Argentina [in the opening group game of the U20 World Cup], for example, they had a lot of possession. But look at the chances and we were by far superior. We won 3-0. So it has worked very well.”

England went on to record an historic tournament success in South Korea, ending 20 years without recording a victory in the tournament and ultimately going on to lift the World Cup – the first men’s team to do so at any level for England since Sir Alf Ramsey’s 1966 heroes.

University of Nottingham Men’s Football will be looking to put Andy’s session into practice on Wednesday as they head to Holywell to play a Loughborough Men 2^nd team who have scored 7 in 3 games at home this season.

Football players studying at The University of Nottingham join a thriving set up in a city steeped in footballing history.  For more information on Performance football at the University of Nottingham, please visit www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/performancefootball or contact Nick Tester at nick@prcelite.co.uk

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