Enjoying the journey

My passion for coaching was born out of my love of football.

In a way, my coaching journey began as a young player at Arsenal when I had a long period out injured. I filled that time watching a lot of training sessions and games. As a defender, I was looking at players like Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Martin Keown and Kolo Touré, to see what I could learn. Although I was looking at them from a playing perspective, I was actually picking up lots of interesting ideas that could be taken into the coaching space. At that time, though, I didn’t realise it.

Although I was unfortunate with injuries, I do feel I was blessed on my playing journey, with the players and coaches that I worked with. I came through at Arsenal when the club was having a lot of success under Arsène Wenger, with a possession-based style and great attacking football. This had followed the success of the George Graham years – the famous back four and ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’. So the players and coaches at the club had a good understanding of balance with and without the ball.

As a youth-team player and in my early years as a professional, Don Howe was a huge influence on me. He had been a coach at Arsenal for many years – coaching the double winners in 1971, first-team manager in the 1980s. He had also been assistant coach with England under Ron Greenwood, Bobby Robson and Terry Venables. By 2001, he was coach of the Arsenal youth team that I played in, which won back-to-back FA Youth Cups. Don was at the back end of his coaching career, so I got the benefit of all the information he had accrued.

What always stood out with Don was the simplicity of his message. He would share information so that it landed with the whole group, but also with individuals. Don had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and was a great coach for any young defender.

I am extremely grateful to him and the other coaches I played for at Arsenal, such as Neil Banfield, who was a key person in my development. Then there was Eddie Niedzwiecki, who was reserve-team coach after Geordie Armstrong sadly passed away, while Pat Rice was assistant to Arsène. There was a lot of intelligence in that coaching team. As a player, you’ve got to try to extract as much information as you can from that environment.

That is what the best players do. From my time as a coach at Arsenal, I look back at someone like Bukayo Saka, who extracted information from the programme and applied it to his game. That is so important, because whether you are starting out or you are a senior player, you still have to get picked to play. You need to build and win the trust of your head coach. Players who can apply information as the head coach wants, and positively affect the game, are always going to have a good chance of being selected. It is a performance environment.

“To be managing a club of that size and give young players opportunities is easier said than done”

Of all the managers that I played for, I would say Arsène was skilful at giving players space to perform. He wanted you to play with an element of freedom. And I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that he gave me. 

After I had made my club debut, but not yet a Premier League debut, he pulled me aside and said: “With your physical level at the moment, you could play full-back in the Premier League, no problem. It is a big push for someone your age to play as a central defender, but potentially you can when you have played more games.”

Then he told me: “You are going to be with the first team now. You need to improve your technical level, and that will come from training with us every day.” A few months later I made my league debut, in what turned out to be the first game of the Invincibles’ 49-game unbeaten run.

Arsène gave that opportunity to players. You had to show him signs that you were developing, but to be managing a club of that size and give young players opportunities is easier said than done.

Unfortunately in my case, I then had a serious injury. I’d had sore shins before I made my Premier League debut, and was on my way to an England Under-21 camp having had a scan the previous day. I was about to get on a plane, when someone from the club’s medical team phoned me with the results and said: “You’re not going to be able to fly. You need to go to the hospital for some X-rays.” It turned out that I had eight stress fractures in each shin.

The original consultation was that it should only take six weeks to heal, but it ended up being eight operations and three years out. I actually got back to a point of being on the bench for the first team, but in the last year of my contract I broke my leg around the tibial nail that the surgeon had to put in.

Arsène said: “It’s no fault of your own, but we’re not going to be in a position to offer you another contract. I’ve seen how you have tried to fight back and you’ve nearly got back, then you’ve had a terrible bit of luck. We want to support and help you, but you need to go and play somewhere else.”

“He was very driven and intense in a good way”

So I went on what felt like the longest trial period at Bournemouth. Naturally so, though, because they wanted to see how I was before they signed me on a short-term deal. The first year there was a baptism of fire. I got in the team, then broke my leg a second time. At the end of that 2007/08 season, we went into administration and dropped down to League Two. The following year, we started on minus 17 points.

From my time at Arsenal I knew that I could persevere and dig in, though. And at Bournemouth we had a team that really stuck together – a band of brothers at a very difficult time. We weren’t getting paid and knew the existence of the club was under threat, but with Eddie Howe we had a leader in his first managerial role who navigated a tricky situation. With a small group of players and a technical team including Eddie and his assistant Jason Tindall, through teamship and hard work, we managed to stay in the Football League.

Eddie was very keen on improving the players and was always happy to stay on and do extras. He was very driven and intense in a good way. He understood the levels of performance we were at, knew what the next level was and worked towards that every day. Bournemouth are currently in a very good position, and Eddie had a big part to play in that.

I played more games for Eddie than any other manager, but unfortunately I picked up another injury that led to me retiring at the age of 27. Even though there had probably been more lows than highs for me as a player, I wanted to stay in football because I loved the game. 

Bournemouth knew that I had been doing my coaching badges. The manager at the time, Lee Bradbury, asked if I would be interested in staying at the club in a coaching capacity. I assumed it was going to be with their centre of excellence, but it turned out to be as a first-team coach. It was a terrific opportunity that I had to take.

I am a curious person, so in those early years of doing my badges before working with the first team, I wanted to get as many coaching hours under my belt as possible. It was important to work out who I was as a coach, and learn how to connect with people. So I worked with a combination of different groups, including Wimborne Town in the Southern League, students at Solent University and Poole College, and schoolkids at a private school where Bournemouth trained.

“We had a lot of players on their second chance. They were desperate to grab it”

These experiences made me realise that you need to wear many different hats as a coach to cater for everyone in your session. Players at the private school, for example, were very quiet. I only had to tell them something once. At Poole College, I remember a session where the goalkeeper was more focused on talking to a girl by the goal and smoking a cigarette. Wimborne Town were a men’s senior team, but they were part-time and only had two training sessions a week. So I had to work on giving them the most bang for their buck. Those experiences gave me a good foundation around connection, as well as being adaptable to any individuals or group I coach.

I had done a year coaching the first team and taking the reserve group at Bournemouth when there was a managerial change, and a different group of coaches came in. What I needed was to go and develop my craft. I strongly felt that youth development was the place for me to do that.

I was fortunate to go and work with Jimmy Gilligan at the Nike Academy. It was a great programme for players aged 17 to 20, who had been released from clubs all over the UK. They came to our 11-month programme at Loughborough University, where we worked to get them back into professional football. There was a huge element of mentorship, because we had a lot of players on their second chance. They were desperate to grab it.

After a year there I went back to Arsenal, where I spent eight years in the academy in a range of roles. I led the foundation phase, coached in the Under-19s Champions League programme, coached the Under-15s, was interim academy manager, and worked as an Under-23s coach. I also supported an interim first-team head coach between Unai Emery leaving and Mikel Arteta’s appointment.

As a result, I saw a lot of what young players go through on their individual journeys. It could be losing a family member, parents getting divorced, making their Premier League debut, going on loan for the first time, getting released, signing for another club, going to university. They go through so many different experiences.

In that time, I was also privileged to work with some great players as they were developing. For example, Yunus Musah had such enthusiasm for training and playing. He always turned up with a smile on his face, which almost made coaching easy. He went from Valencia to AC Milan in 2023, and it has been great to see him playing for the US national team.

“To become a professional footballer at any level is a huge achievement”

Then there was Eddie Nketiah, Stephy Mavididi, Danny Ballard, Mark McGuinness, Emile Smith Rowe, Alex Iwobi, Joe Willlock, Nathan Tella. There are so many I could name. Nathan is an interesting one. He got released, went to Southampton, then picked up a serious injury. He managed to come back, and to see him winning the Bundesliga with Leverkusen was fantastic and brought back good memories. You remember these players when they were 14 or 15 years old, training at Hale End, when you didn’t know what was going to happen with them.

There are many more who might not be household names, but have gone on to have a career in the game. Naturally people often think about those at the highest level, but to become a professional footballer at any level is a huge achievement. On a global level, the game is just so competitive.

Every one of their journeys is different. As a coach looking to develop players, you have to understand where a person is in their own journey, be there for them, and try to guide and help. Ultimately, though, it will always come down to the player: the person they are, and what they are prepared to do themselves.

Having filled so many different roles at Arsenal, I arrived at a stage where I felt I needed to be challenged more. In 2021 I left Arsenal and joined the FA as a national head coach. This role had a few different areas of focus: head coach of a pathway age group, talent ID, club engagement and coach education. I liked the idea of international football because it was very different to what I had experienced, even though I had worked with many youth internationals and played for England myself at Under-17 and Under-20 levels.

With minimal time, you have to be able to connect quickly with and understand both staff and players. As a result, my own understanding of learning styles and the delivery of information developed – and so did my leadership. I led teams, at a World Cup and Euros, where we had the same number of staff as we did players. 

There was also an added challenge of navigating educational exams throughout the tournament. Our commitment to supporting all players through exams was equally important to me. We correctly prioritised supporting education demands, even if it took players out of game time.

“One of my key pillars is to control the controllables”

Our journey at the 2023 Under-17 Euros ended with a last-minute penalty defeat against France, but then we had a World Cup playoff against Switzerland three days later. As we travelled across Hungary for this game, there were a lot of disappointed players and staff on the bus, naturally feeling sorry for themselves. I knew we had to dust ourselves down quickly and find a way to go again.

The playoff was our fifth game in 12 days, in the soaring summer heat. Everyone was tired, but we had to find a way to generate energy, belief and come together as a group. We went 1-0 up after 17 minutes, but fell 2-1 down soon after half-time. There were weary bodies out there, but whether covering for a teammate defensively or getting forward, crucially there was still energy and teamwork all over the pitch. 

We won the game 4-2 and qualified for the World Cup. Seeing the faces of our players and staff celebrating is something I will never forget. The environment and culture that we created, collectively, had helped us to reach the World Cup. It was a lesson for everyone involved about teamship, perseverance and making sure you focus on the controllables. It was pleasing to finish the Under-17 UEFA Euros with the best defensive record, too. This was testament to the effort of both players and staff.

One of my key pillars is to control the controllables. It was my club chaplain at Bournemouth who told me about John Wooden, the basketball coach from the US who spoke a lot about processes and controllables. For example, controlling the effort that you put in to getting better. If a team understands what they can control and puts the right amount of energy and focus into it, they are going to be in a good position.

In my time with the FA and at Arsenal, I had come up against teams from Belgium and been impressed with the level of their young players. A few years before I’d had a conversation with City Football Group (CFG) about their Lommel project. So when the opportunity arose to join Lommel in January 2024, as an assistant to Steve Bould, I recognised a chance to broaden my horizons.

The project at Lommel has meant working in senior football with a very multinational squad. We have 18 different nationalities in our playing group. And although we are competing in senior football, we have played games where the average age of our players is 21.4 years old. It is a unique project.

“Working in Belgium has opened my horizons to the global game”

Belgian football has a very different system to England. At Lommel we currently play in the Challenger Pro League – the second tier – where there is a mix of teams. Some are feeder and development teams – B and Under-21 sides from clubs including Genk, Anderlecht and Club Brugge. Others are senior teams, which means there is a contrast in playing styles. Every game is different and very competitive, as a result. It is a diverse league.

In fact, after the Premier League, Belgium’s league has the highest physical output in European football. That is why a lot of players transition from Belgium to the Premier League, so it is a fascinating environment for player and coach development. 

In my first season with Lommel we were very close to promotion. We lost the playoff final after navigating five tough games, after which the team changed quite dramatically. We lost a lot of experience and have been even younger this season, which has been more challenging. I enjoyed working with Steve, and when he left in January I was asked to step in as interim head coach. I was happy to help both the club and the group during a very difficult period. It was a spell that accelerated my development, in terms of managing morale and leading a multinational group during a very difficult period for the club.

Working in Belgium has opened my horizons to the global game. As a coach I want to work at the highest level possible, but it is also about enjoying your journey. Since making the difficult decision to retire as a player, it has been a privilege to stay involved in the game that I love. Football has given me so many valuable life lessons and allowed me to work with some really good people. I have learned a lot, and it is fulfilling to have been able to connect with people and help them along the way.