Jennifer Foster: Cohesion and chemistry

‘Clarity is important’

Foster has had a busy season with Everton, with Scott Phelan coming over from the boys’ academy to replace Brian Sorensen as head coach.

She says that when she is working with a new head coach, she will seek to have a conversation as soon as possible about how they want their assistant to operate.

“I always feel like when there’s clarity, assumption doesn’t happen, and there’s never any moments – ‘Oh, I thought you were going to do this’.

“As soon as I have clarity, I can do my job to the best of my ability.”

She says one of the best parts of her job is spending time with players doing individual or small group analysis work.

“I always feel like when there’s clarity, assumption doesn’t happen, and there’s never any moments – ‘Oh, I thought you were going to do this’”

“How we’ve progressed as a team is now players will come to you and ask for that, and I think it’s really important and a sign of positivity in the group when players are actually coming to you and asking for that information, because it means they want to learn, they want to develop, and also they have that focus on the game.

“Our centre backs love it. They want to know what striker they’re playing up against: a[n Alessia] Russo, for instance, likes to hold the ball. She can roll in one touch. So if her body shape is open this way they know she’s going to roll in one touch.

That might change the way that they step in and press against us.”

‘A real privilege’

Foster also stepped into an interim head coach role at Leicester City when Willie Kirk left the job very suddenly in March 2024.

“Sometimes when you don’t have the time to digest what’s happening, you’re almost thrown into the deep end, which I think actually helped at the time, because I remember finding out on the Saturday we were preparing for Liverpool, an FA Cup quarter-final that was happening on the Sunday.

“So for me it was how do I get this team prepared? With everything that was happening at the time, the team was just always at the forefront, and I think that was my mindset throughout. There wasn’t time to think about anything else or even think about what I needed. Having that focus of the team and making sure the players had everything they needed to go out and perform week in, week out, was just how I dealt with things.”

Foster got the team through that quarter-final and into the last four of the cup for the first time ever – where they lost to Tottenham Hotspur in extra-time.

“I couldn’t have been more proud and it was a real privilege to stand up there and lead that team, and I remember in the huddle at the end saying to that group, ‘This won’t be the last time we stand here,’ because I truly felt that, and I think a lot of people just expected Tottenham to walk all over us and they didn’t.”

“Sometimes you have to have a knock back to be able to get that success in the future.”

She goes on: “It was difficult at the time, but the feelings from the players and the staff afterwards was, ‘We’ll remember this moment’.

“Sometimes you have to have a knock back to be able to get that success in the future.”

She admits that there were some big challenges as an interim head coach, particularly around recruitment, but adds that she was grateful for her previous managers who had given her a chance to gain experience of that kind of work.

“I was quite lucky that I delved into some of those scenarios before,” she says. “There was a lot of learning on the job, there was a lot of making mistakes. but learning to deal with those mistakes very quickly, and again, that was part of having the support network that I had around me, to bounce ideas off, but also if I felt I had made the wrong decision – ‘Okay, what do we do about it? How do we sort it out?’”

And she says that a good assistant has to be ready for that kind of situation.

“You’re supporting the head coach and everything else, but also you have to be prepared because that moment could happen at any point - which it did. The circumstance obviously was very different to one that you’d expect.

“It’s very easy as an assistant to be probably a little bit more pally with some of the players because you’re that good cop – but if you then have to transition into a head coach, it makes it very difficult.

“Just make sure that there’s a good amount of distance between you and the players should you ever need to, because otherwise it becomes difficult to have those tough conversations, if you have too close a relationship with players.”

‘An opportunity I couldn’t turn down’

Foster has another job too, as assistant coach for New Zealand, currently working with the squad as they seek to qualify for next year’s Women’s World Cup.

“It was an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down,” she says. The travel required is extensive and the camps are intense – for staff and players.

“The use of every single staff member in that international set-up is just phenomenal because you have to be so efficient with your work, your timings. When we had a three-game international break just before Christmas, we had three matchday minus ones, and that was all the training we had with the players to prepare for these games. So there’s definitely a lot more efficiency in what we do, but the one thing that I would say about New Zealand is it’s very much a case of everybody is on board. Everybody’s there for the same thing. When you all have that same goal and same vision, and also a country that probably doesn’t have all the same resources as [a country like] England does, you have to find different ways to get the best out of players, to get the best out of staff, which can be quite magical at times.”

“It’s important that I then have my morals and values that I will always stick to, and that’s a big part of me”

Regardless of where she’s coaching, Foster has a strong sense of herself and her philosophy.

“When I go into a new club, for me it’s really understanding what the manager expects from me or the head coach expects from me. But then I also flip that back and say, ‘This is what you can expect from me,’ as well, because it’s important that I then have my morals and values that I will always stick to, and that’s a big part of me. There are morals and values that I’ll always stick to, but then knowing what they need, it then allows me to best complement them in the best way possible.”