Young, gifted and English: Are we suspicious of ‘creative’ players?
By Alistair Magowan
BBC Sport When England under-21 coach Gareth Southgate took a session at the Football Association's annual coaches conference earlier this month, he posed a question to the group of 18-year-olds he was about to instruct.

"How many of you think you are a creative player?"

"Four out of the 20 players reluctantly put their hands up," Southgate tells BBC Sport afterwards. "And yet we were able to show before the end of the session that they had all done creative things and all had fantastic individual ability."

Recent appointments at FA
Dan Ashworth
•Dan Ashworth from West Brom as director of elite development
•Matt Crocker from Southampton as Head of Coach and Player Development
•Mike Rigg from Manchester City as Head of Talent Identification
•Dan Micciche from MK Dons as the Technical Lead for 12-16 year-olds
•Neil Dewsnip From Everton has the same role for the 17-21 age group.

The anecdote is perhaps indicative of English football's uneasy past relationship with skilful and creative players.

Where other countries might have encouraged a player to dribble out from defence, in England a player would be urged to "clear their lines". Taking on a player would be left to the wingers with a preference for getting the ball forward quickly.

Players such as former Southampton forward Matt Le Tissier were given short shrift. No matter that he had a wonderful first touch and scored some breathtaking goals, his work-rate was often cited as to why he did not receive more than eight England caps during the 1990s.

There are many other examples including former Tottenham and England midfielder Glenn Hoddle, who was under-appreciated a decade previously.

As the former head of Everton's academy Neil Dewsnip says: "Maybe we've had these players, but maybe we as coaches and managers haven't been brave enough to allow these people to express themselves as much as we hope to in the future."

Dewsnip was at Everton for 20 years and helped develop Wayne Rooney and Ross Barkley, but has now been recruited by FA director of elite development Dan Ashworth as the governing body attempts to tackle the issue head on.

More than 1,000 coaches gathered recently at the National Football Centre - St George's Park - for the FA's Licensed Coaches Club Conference with 'developing creativity' the central theme.

And while it comes after the number of English under-21 players in the Premier League reached a new low last season, it has also coincided with a crop of exciting English youngsters making their mark on the top flight.

This season, Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge, Everton's Ross Barkley, Tottenham winger Andros Townsend and West Ham's Ravel Morrison have all shown technical ability, where there were serious concerns after the England Under-21s crashed out of last summer's European Championship.

Yet there is still scepticism. Townsend's profligacy for Spurs early in the season was highlighted in some sections of the media until he scored a cracker in England's crucial World Cup qualifying win over Montenegro.

Former England goalkeeper David James also said he found Morrison "frustrating" in recent England Under-21 qualifiers for doing too many stepovers and even the forward's coach Southgate talked about the right balance between being skilful and effective.

So is there still a suspicion about creative players?

Ross Barkley Barkley is one of several creative English players taking the Premier League by storm this season

Like Southgate, Dewsnip - who is now the FA's technical lead for the 17-21 age group - believes doubts about creativity are often cultural.

"It's interesting what people perceive creativity to be," Dewsnip tells BBC Sport from St George's Park. "You could put Wayne Rooney in that bracket, Steven Gerrard too. And David Beckham could be considered creative, in the way he scores his free-kicks and so on.

"We are a very work-ethic orientated culture. I was born and bred in Liverpool and you know that mentality where if you work hard then everything will be OK, possibly we take that into football and other sports.

"Maybe we can improve on the creative things that go with that and maybe other nations have done that better than we have over the years."

Southgate cites the use of futsal and kids growing up in inner cities practising in playground cages as two examples of how English youngsters are perhaps becoming more skilful with the ball at their feet.

Creative young Englishman taking on the Premier League
•Ross Barkley (Everton)
•Andros Townsend (Tottenham)
•Daniel Sturridge, Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling (all Liverpool)
•Saido Berahino (West Brom)
•Ravel Morrison (West Ham)
•Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal)
•Danny Welbeck (Man Utd)
•Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez (Southampton)

Then there is the introduction of the £320m Elite Player Performance Plan, which is almost doubling the number of coaches and the amount of coaching time in Premier League and Football League academies.

But striking the right balance between creativity and effectiveness is still proving a tricky problem to solve.

"We have some players I'm working with at the minute that have been very exciting to see in training and we have to continue to do that against better opposition and the tougher challenges that lie ahead," says Southgate, who has overseen an unbeaten start to the England under-21s Euro 2015 qualification campaign.

"At 18 or 19 no player is the finished article so we have to give them the chance to try things and to discover what works and what doesn't. But usually when you sit down with a player and watch a video of the game, they will be fairly honest with you about where they have made a good decision and where they might have done something differently."

Southgate adds: "We're trying to give them that freedom in the team structure."

Part of Dewsnip's role will be to work with academy coaches to implement this creative evolution while also working towards an English "DNA".

And in appointing the former Everton coach and others from the professional game, former West Brom sporting director Ashworth has taken a key step to ensure the FA retains a measure of influence in youth development.

Ravel Morrison scores an incredible volley in training for England U21s


Ravel Morrison's amazing backheel volley

Ashworth says that English football's attitude towards skilful and creative players is "improving" and he is confident young English players will get better.

"Over the next several years I think we will see an improvement in the standard of young players coming through," he tells BBC Sport. "I'm really, really, optimistic that, working with the two leagues and with the clubs, we will start to see a difference."

Of course, much of this will depend on how often Premier League and Football League club managers use English youngsters.

But if coaches help develop confident players, perhaps this could even help the senior England team where former England manager Fabio Capello said the weight of the shirt could sometimes cripple his team.

Current boss Roy Hodgson has already shown he is willing to adopt the theme by picking Townsend for vital games and has since included Barkley and the likes of Southampton forward Adam Lallana, who has won praise for a string of clever displays for his club this season.

"Developing fearless players comes from the coaches, the players themselves and maybe even the crowd," Dewsnip concludes. "The supporters at Goodison Park would always be forgiving to Rooney in the early days, to Leon Osman and Barkley now. They see them as being really talented and would allow them to make the odd mistake without getting on their backs.

"It's the whole environment. If people realise that the players need time and encouragement and allow them to play with no fear, then maybe we will get more of them at the highest levels."





http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25446003

I love the fact that he calls a fearless player one who isn't afraid of having his foot on the ball rather than one who sticks his head in "where it hurts".

How do you train a player to be more creative ?

Just allow him to play freely.IMO a natural creative player should only be trained and taught tatically but when he's in possesion of the ball just let him express himself.Do not restrict him from doing what he's capable of.Unfortunately lots of youth coaches and some HAL ones in Australia ruin or don't get full benefit of a technically gifted player.As soon as he gets the ball coaches starts screaming their heads off to play 1 or 2 touch football.

That's the typical english mentality which still has an impact on most of our coaches here in Australia.What has England achieved with this sort of approach at national team level? Not much.I would say nothing for a nation that invented the game.What will Australia achieve by replicating same approach? Nothing.It has been proven for a long time that at youth and senior national or club levels that we really struggle when playing technically superior opposition.

It's comforting to read that the FA is trying and promoting a change.Hopefully we'll follow.

There are other ways for a player to play the ball out of defence other than dribbling out or clearing lines. It requires more than one player working as a unit.

Dribbling may be an option as a last resort. The consequences for failure can be pretty severe though.

In Ball Possession Opposition (BPO), players need to understand their roles in a team plan.

In team Ball Possession (BP), when a player is without the ball, there are still some invaluable instructions to give. I agree though, players should be allowed to try things in games, rather than always told to play one and two touch football.

It is a shame Nick Carle, a creative player, did not have coaches like Pim Verbeek, when he was younger. PVB would have had him working harder on his defensive game in BPO to augment his creativity in BP. I've been surprised FF plays him as a screener, than a number 10 in conjunction with ADP in an attacking midfield triangle , like Gombau has played with AU.

It is important to provide players with a lot of opportunity in training to be creative. They also need to be allowed to lay freely, on the street, futsal, etc. I also learnt from a very experienced state youth coach and NPL coach, not to berate youth/junior players from the sidelines when attempting something that does not come off.

A bit like how Melbourne Heart passed sideways and backwards and gained nothing the oher week. The risk/reward is part of a players education.
Most English pundits slate David Luiz as a defender , but he is how modern defenders play.
Its about getting numbers up in midfield, as for those that remember Luke de Vere he was also good ball playing central defender.