Davies Sports x West Kirby United

On Tuesday night the Davies Sports Sensible Soccer Team visited West Kirby at West Kirby Grammar School. Fifty people attended the event along
with the football team and parents, which was organised with the help of West Kirby Grammar School.

The Kirby under 17s were the team being coached on the night where Mike Phelan carried out a possession-based football drill in an attempt to build the team’s ability to maintain, control and dictate the play. Firstly, the area was set small as coaches can more successfully simulate real-world game circumstances while emphasising technical skills, decision-making, and collaboration by conducting possession-based football drills in confined areas. By focusing on passing accuracy, decision-making, communication, and teamwork, this drill enhances the fundamental skills required for successful possession-based football.

This training session’s goal is to observe how players manage possession when facing opposition pressure. As the players expanded farther into space and gained more composure over time, developments started to take on a visual form. After progression became visual Mike Phelan then made the area larger and made the teams bigger before implementing a goal scoring element to the drill. The resulting effect of the possession drill before the nets became a part of this was that the players were not rushing into shooting, and they were considering the players on their team and making sure they made the correct instinct decisions without firing the ball from anywhere. This exercise is meant to make the squad more confident and efficient in retaining possession, managing the game, and setting up scoring possibilities. It is a cornerstone of many teams’ game plans, especially those who prioritise patient buildup play and ball retention to exploit the defence of the opposition.

The West Kirby U17s were given the STATSports systems to monitor their performance.

Data science is an ever-increasing aspect of sports coaching in terms of coach intelligence, ensuring evidence-based coaching takes place, the psychology of goal setting and athlete improvement among other things.

Although STATSports systems are primarily used by the world’s elite footballers it is now universally apparent that school, college, and grassroots players also benefit from the utilisation and understanding of both data metrics and performance analysis. Generation Z learners and google/mobile device students be it school or in sport require evidence for action and they live in a world of beating or unlocking levels. In addition, performance measurement, data analysis and subsequent action is also a prime skill for applied educational attainment and future employability skills across all walks of life. STATSports provides exactly this through a sporting and healthy analogy.

The training session was 60 minutes in duration, and it was clear to see the determination and hard work from all the lads as a collective across the 13 STATSport vests, it shows as a collective they covered 49.5km. The greatest distance covered in the session (4713m) was by Jude Mottram (12). The average distance covered taking all players into account was 3811m. We must take into account that the average is brought down Nathan Milton (2) who was injured early on and stopped playing. Of the thirteen players measured, 3 players were below the average who were: (2) Nathan Milton, (8) James McIntrye and (15) Tom Farrall. However; this would vary if injured player (2) Nathan Milton wasn’t included within the stats. The total distance of players provides valuable insights into the intensity and demands of the training session which can have many implications.

These could be good positioning may allow for less distance having to be covered and good management of workload. Stamina is just one aspect of a player’s overall skill set, and it should be complemented by technical, tactical, and mental attributes.

For an Under 17s team a player below average may be tired or injured and is therefore a concern, this concern may be valid but have a logical answer such as playing other sports or activities recently. On the other hand, the player may have an advanced tactical knowledge of the game and therefore move more gracefully. The players working above average can then allow themselves to focus more on developing their technical and tactical side of their game.

The greatest sprint distance (45m) was (12) Jude Mottram done within 6 sprints; the distance was around 30% greater than any other player. The average sprint distance was around 13.5 meters which was only exceeded by 5 players which is less than half of the players. These players were (3) Charlie Scott, (4) Brad Downey, (10) John Lyon, (11) Daniel Osunjimi and (12) Jude Mottram.

The overpowering distances from these can help to show that they have a clear development of speed, explosiveness and physical fitness already in their game. The reasoning behind these great sprint distances may be due to the attacking threat that they provide such as from counter attacking football or due to a high defensive work rate tracking back a lot. Within the drill that was carried out in this session the area given to play in was quite compact due to a small area with quite a lot of players which is more than likely the reason to the small sprint distances.

Three of the players had 0 sprints throughout the session who were (8) James McIntyre, (14) Tom Barratt and (15) Tom Farrall. The reasoning for this may be that they need to work on their explosiveness, or they may have been positioned in the possession drill in places which required smaller amounts of movements such as defending the net.

The greatest average speed was set by player (12) Jude Mottram who was closely followed by all the players except (2) Nathan Milton who stopped playing due to an injury. All the players were in or around the average speed of 0.61 meters per second. For all these players we can tell they perform well physically which will allow them to focus on developing other aspects of their overall game. The measurement of average speed can help to show and compare endurance, tactical strategies, positional differences, player performance and it can also help to monitor injuries and recovery over time. For this team we can see that this is an aspect that they all perform on similar levels so they could all work together in a session to compete and improve each other.

These are an overall gathering of the data.

The greatest number of accelerations was 74 by Oscar Wilkinson (5) which is quite significant compared to the rest of the group. The reasoning for such an outlier may be due to this player having other well-developed skills to complement this such as good knowledge, technicality and physical attributes. These greater acceleration levels have a distinct advantage in that they can accelerate to top speed more quickly helping to outrun opponents, set up scoring opportunities, and participate in both the attacking and defensive parts of the game.

The average number of accelerations across the 13 players was 50 which just over half the group exceeded. The players who exceeded this were (4) Brad Downey, (5) Oscar Wilkinson, (11) Daniel Osunjimi, (12) Jude Mottram, (10) John Lyon, (9) Brandon Hackett and (15) Tom Farrall. These large number of accelerations throughout a possession-based football drill can indicate tactical awareness, fitness levels, pressing and defensive efforts, fluid ball movement, speed, agility and high intensity.

To conclude there is full VEO footage of the sessions available here.