Establishing a positive environment is critical to the development and performance of the team. Laying out the structure and expectations with a key focus that everyone follows is vital, and maintaining this environment is the role of everyone within the club, from management to the players. With all this in place, you are providing the players with the best chance of being able to perform to the best of their ability and to develop and improve as players but also to improve the team performance week in, week out and create a learning environment.

RECRUITING FOR SUCCESS

Getting players and staff whose qualities fit the team and club profile is so important. I was proud to be able to recruit two former England internationals with over 100 caps each to London Bees when I was head coach there - Rachel Unitt, who came on board as a player, and Rachel Yankey, who was my assistant.

Whether your club is run by volunteers, or solely by paid staff, or a mixture of the two, I see it as part of the head coach’s role to empower everyone to contribute to the collective success. If you have the right people with the right characters in all the positions, that makes it much more straightforward.

“Flexibility within a system is a critical part of a team’s ability to adapt to game situations”

PLAYER ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As head coach of a club, I will ensure we will have a technical training program that ensures we are consistently playing creative and attacking football in conjunction with our football philosophy and team ethos, and we will have values embedded that define and ensure the highest standards of behaviour and attitude by every staff member and player.

A key element to my philosophy is adapting and developing strategy with tactics to suit each situation. Flexibility within a system is a critical part of a team’s ability to adapt to game situations in order to overcome problems that may occur.

My preferred formation is 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, but that depends on the players I have available at the time. I prefer to find a formation to suit the players I have, rather than find players to fit a formation I want to play. Players are expected to know how to defend as a team, whether pressing from the front or dropping off and holding as a team, and individually as well. I want them to react quickly in transition, to play out from the back, to play quickly in and around the box, to be creative in wide areas, and to express themselves at the right time and in an appropriate area of the pitch.

And, of course, I want them to display a winning mentality. What we see on the pitch reflects back what we have within our club.