The club have released footage from one of the manager’s training sessions that features the gaffer wearing a microphone as he puts his squad through their paces.
The Terriers have released a video from inside the training facility that provides insight into how new gaffer Darren Moore approaches working with his players. In the video, the manager is seen leading the session and speaking to his players while wearing a microphone.
Huddersfield Town are now enjoying their first prolonged period of working out under Moore during the current international break after dealing with a backlog of games during his first couple of weeks in charge.
Here are some significant observations from the film that may indicate the type of Town team he expects to see when the Championship season returns with Queens Park Rangers’ visit on Saturday.
Constant targeted encouragement – “Goals goals goals”. “There you go, there you go, there you go”. “Brilliant, brilliant, play play play play”. Coaches shouting encouragement to players is obviously nothing exceptional, but you can’t help but notice just how incessant it is from Moore.
The gaffer is keen to personalise it wherever possible: the video starts with Moore telling Delano Burgzorg that he expects the forward to get into double figures for goals this season, later taking him aside to reiterate that message (“goals and assists, Dell, goals and assists, that’s what you’re here for: goals goals goals goals goals goals”).
This is not just about building the players’ confidence up, but about positively reinforcing habits he wants to see. One of our criticisms of Burgzorg, for instance, has been his tendency to end up drifting away from the opposition goal out of a desire to stay on the ball, rather than laying it off and getting into the box. Moore’s message to the Dutchman frames that not as a criticism, however, but as a target: “the closer you are to the goal, the more I get excited.”
The manager also has a quiet word with Jaheim Headley in the middle of a training session to tell the left-back how much his work has ‘warmed’ the manager, but with specific enough encouragement that Headley can be left in no doubt as to what behaviours have drawn that response.
Darren Moore wants to increase the speed and accuracy. You can see that the manager’s staccato, rapid-fire delivery of his passion is not totally unintentional because it establishes the pace at which he expects his players to perform their jobs.
As soon as the game begins, Moore informs the players that he wants the tempo to quicken. Moore also encourages Headley, praising his “pop pop pop” of a play. He emphasizes that to head of performance Paul Bower, one of his coaches, telling him: “You’ve got to drive it, because it’s short bursts” while tapping out the rhythm once again with his fist on his palm.
But he wants the players to be tidy, too: he tells the players how pleased he is to see them working the ball well in small spaces, and keeps telling players how invaluable good passes and layoffs have been to producing goals, stopping the action at various points to recap the key components in each more.
Youngsters involved – Moore is working with an extended group of players that includes plenty of the B team, from those on the fringes of the first team like Josh Austerfield to younger players like Luke Daley and last week’s B team hat-trick hero Hazeem Bakre.
That may be a result of Moore wanting to see his players on a larger pitch, which naturally requires more bodies to train against than small-sided sessions – but it also means those players are indirectly getting a chance to catch the manager’s eye. Might we see any surprises on the teamsheet in the coming weeks?
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