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Gerrard on coaching the under 18s

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gkmacca

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This sounds encouraging. It's a bit frustrating that us mere fans who've watched the kids have been saying much the same for ages, but previous coaches just let it continue. Gerrard sounds like he'll at least re-shape the mentality.





Young players need to toughen up and stop showing off, Steven Gerrard tells Paul Joyce
Paul Joyce, Northern Football Correspondent
April 27 2017, 5:00pm, The Times

It was not simply what Steven Gerrard said but, rather, the manner in which he said it. The question, centring on whether he had discerned a flimsier side to academy football in his first few months as a coach, was still being delivered, yet he felt compelled to interrupt. In that instant, he offered up the first real insight into his managerial philosophy.

The Liverpool Under-18 players will not be encouraged to indulge in rainbow flicks, attempt nutmegs or bamboozle opponents with a blur of step-overs next season. Instead, it will be a case of rolling up their sleeves, working feverishly and delivering match-defining moments through heart and graft, as forces of nature, much as Gerrard did in his playing days.

“My teams will be physical,” he says. “I hate watching footballers, and football, when there is no physical side and you don’t compete.”

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Gerrard is keen to instil a good work ethic in his playersMARTIN RICKETT/PA WIRE

Gerrard will take charge of the under-18s in the summer, the pressure of being responsible for careers more than results is something he is keen to embrace, but he has already made his presence felt during 12 weeks shadowing more established coaches at the Kirkby facility.

During last month’s clash with Manchester City Under-18, it was Gerrard who delivered a rousing half-time team-talk. Liverpool’s youngsters, imbued with confidence, duly inflicted a first league defeat in 28 months on their rivals.

He had consciously sought to inject a little more oomph into their performance and will continue to do so.

“How do you coach it? 50-50s,” Gerrard says, laughing. “No, I think it is important that you channel it in the right way. As a player I got many, many tackles wrong and went over the top a few times and I had to apologise.

“That is not something I want to put into kids, or young players, at all, but you have to prepare them for the top level. The top level is not just about tackles and competing.

“It is about trying to prepare them for the last five or ten minutes of games when it is hard, and your legs are burning and your heart is burning, and it is not a nice place to be as a player. But you have to get them to be mentally strong to be prepared for that.

“There is a showboating mentality through academies. A lot of kids that play the games think they have to do ten lollipops or Cruyff turns to look good or stand out.

“I don’t know [where it comes from], maybe computer games. There are a lot of skilful players in the game that young players try and emulate and model their game on other players like a [Cristiano] Ronaldo or that type of player. Whereas you have to look at yourself and say, ‘What have I got? What are my strengths? How can I improve my weaknesses and become a player in my own right.

“We all love a bit of skill and talent, I love all that, but the other side of the game is huge. It’s massive.

“I like streetwise footballers. I think all the top players come from the street. The kids in our academy are coming into an unbelievable place to work.

“There is a case where they get a little bit too much, too soon and they sort of get into that comfort zone of working in a lovely place and then it is a big shock for them when they have to move on or get released. So that is what you have to drive into the players that, while they are here, they have to make sacrifices and give it their best, don’t get too comfortable, because the hard work starts when they get out of the academy.”

Gerrard, who is expecting the birth of his fourth child and will turn 37 next month, speaks from experience. He has been back at Anfield since February when he bucked the trend among his contemporaries and opted to start again at football’s coalface, albeit one he knows well from his own stellar career.
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Inglethorpe wants Gerrard to approach coaching in the same way as he did in his playing careerMIKE EGERTON/EMPICS SPORT

He could have played on, or sat permanently on the pundits’ couch, but there is a curiosity that lies within, an itch that needed to be scratched, having seen Gérard Houllier, Rafa Benítez, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers make decisions and wondered what he would have done in their position. There is also an ambition to help Liverpool that remains undimmed.

It was Jürgen Klopp who told Gerrard that he needed to align himself with a team and accept responsibility rather than float between age groups. The academy director Alex Inglethorpe [along with Steve Heighway] mentors him and, in return, Gerrard asked for one thing. “The deal with Alex was, ‘If you’re going to mentor me, be honest and straight with me. If you see something I am doing wrong or you want me to change something, then tell me because if you don’t I’ll never learn anything.’ ”

What has he mentioned?

“[Positive] body language on the side in coaching sessions,” Gerrard says. “He talked to me about my coaching voice and he wants it to be the same as it was when I was a player, when I was captain. He is very good'.

This is typical Gerrard: as open about how he needs to improve as the adjustments that he will seek to make in others.

Klopp and Inglethorpe believe that Gerrard boasts the attributes to be an outstanding coach and his eye for a player seems sharp. After all, he tipped Trent Alexander-Arnold, whom he had coached while undertaking his Uefa B licence, for stardom two years ago.

Gerrard knows that every defeat will be viewed by some as a slight on his capabilities. He is aware that his character will be tested by having to pick teams and hand out earbashings.

“None of that worries me or scares me,” he says. “If it is my fault we get beat, that’s fine. It’s about the players. I feel confident I can do a good job and I am really looking forward to it.

“Every manager and coach I have spoken to has said I will make loads of mistakes, but your first job is better to be away from the cameras. You still get that little bit of exposure with the under-18s — LFC TV, interviews with the local paper. It is a great age and a good idea to start there.

“I’ve been through that process from the age of eight. I’ve had the highs and lows and that will help me moving forward. I’ll treat players how I expect to be treated myself. The key with this age group is development. Of course I want to win and the kids want to win but it can’t be the be-all and end-all at that age. It is about their long-term development, trying to prepare them for their own careers, but once the game starts . . .”
 
“My teams will be physical,” he says. “I hate watching footballers, and football, when there is no physical side and you don’t compete.”

That's the best bit
 
Good read indeed. It clearly separates Gerrard from i.e. Carra, and Neville too for that matter. It is not a dig at Carra, but it shows that Gerrard is more a manager material than Carra ever was. It is easy to talk about tactical differencies and show some example on a hypertechnological screen, but it is different to do the work and put the effort in there. Neville was brutally undressed during his spell as a "manager" in Valencia.
 
Good read indeed. It clearly separates Gerrard from i.e. Carra, and Neville too for that matter. It is not a dig at Carra, but it shows that Gerrard is more a manager material than Carra ever was. It is easy to talk about tactical differencies and show some example on a hypertechnological screen, but it is different to do the work and put the effort in there. Neville was brutally undressed during his spell as a "manager" in Valencia.

How? Carragher may well go on and do the same. Just because he decided he wanted to have a media career first doesn't mean he can't in the future get involved in coaching and management.
 
How? Carragher may well go on and do the same. Just because he decided he wanted to have a media career first doesn't mean he can't in the future get involved in coaching and management.

I have heard plenty of People saying Carra is the manager material more than Gerrard. I have never agreed on it, and never seen the Logic it is based on either. That he was capable of leading a back four doesn't make him a manager. Sure Carra can go on and do Things. I just don't believe he will be a better manager than Gerrard.
 
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I have heard plenty of People saying Carra is the manager material more than Gerrard. I have never agreed on it, and never seen the Logic it is based on either. That he was capable of leading a back four doesn't make him a manager. Sure Carra can og on and do Things. I just don't believe he will be a better manager than Gerrard.

But you've claimed that this is proof, for some weird reason.
 
I think in the past there's been a lazy and condescending belief that, while we shape the skills for the kids, lower league clubs will then take them on loan and develop them a bit as competitors. Which doesn't work because those clubs haven't got the time or inclination to act as a finishing school. They need their loan players to help them win games. Immediately. So our kids don't tend to grow on loan, they tend to spend most of their time as unwanted subs.

So Gerrard's passion should signal an long overdue shift in emphasis, returning to a proper balance between playing the right way and playing to win. And he's starting with the right age group to make a difference.
 
I cant wait until hes won successive youth cups and shit and becomes our manager and dominates the league for a decade
 
That's a boss read.

Let's face it, if you're a young footballer staring up at stevie g telling you to do something, you're gonna fucking listen, & you're gonna fucking do it.

I'm hoping he can make the life around the club a little less cushy for them too. I've heard a couple of tales about older players telling kids about cleaning the first team boots & responses along the lines of "Fuck that, we'd just go play for someone else".

These lads need to learn how to fucking work. If some of this current first team had worked their arses off as kids I bet their mental attitude would be better than it is now.
 
Bloody millenials can't be bothered putting a shift in.

On a serious note, a more physical regime wil mean more injured kids. Hopefully they are encouraged to properly look after their bodies, nutrition, rest/recovery etc
 
Strange how some things work out: Gerrard, as under18s coach, will now be working with the under16s coach Tom Culshaw. Gerrard and Culshaw grew up together on the Bluebell, playing for the same Huyton teams, and became great mates. Both of them joined LFC. Then Culshaw got picked to train alongside Carragher and Owen at Lilleshall while Gerrard was snubbed. After that, Culshaw captained our reserve team but didn't progress further, and drifted away into coaching. And now they're both back at the club as colleagues. And Culshaw devotes a fair bit of time talking to the under 16s about how fiercely determined Gerrard was as a kid - which will now be perfect preparation for when they're being coached by the man himself. It's a funny old game, Saint!
 
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