James Coutts
James Coutts is a Coaching Advisor at Player Development Project. He is a former Southampton FC & AFC Bournemouth player, has coached NPL Football in Australia and has completed his AFC A-License through Football Federation Australia.
Articles by James Coutts
In this article PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts discusses the value of ‘unit coaching’ or ‘position specific coaching’ and how you can incorporate this specific coaching model into your sessions. What is unit training? When discussing unit training we are considering a unit that’s position specific within the team, for example ‘defenders’ can be a unit, ‘wingers’ can be a unit and so on. Depending on what shape you play could have an impact, it could mean you’re working with a ‘back 3’ as your…
In this Masterclass Webinar replay, PDP Technical Advisor, Dan Wright is joined by PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts for an interactive and engaging webinar on the challenging topic of How to Coach Teenagers. Dan and James present a series of considerations for developing youth players from social and emotional needs, through to physical and tactical considerations. This replay also includes questions from the live audience who tuned in at the time which the PDP team answered during the presentation. This is essential viewing for coaches…
In this Masterclass webinar replay, the PDP team share a top presentation on developing 1v1 players. PDP Co-Founder Dave Wright hosts a conversation with PDP Technical Advisor, Dan Wright and PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts on the value of 1v1s and how you can support your players confidence in developing this key attribute. The conversation covers a range of topics related to 1v1 football: – Position specific 1v1s – Various session plans for you to adapt – Discuss where 1v1s happen on the pitch –…
Position-specific coaching can be a powerful tool in player development. It enables us to add new dimensions to our activities, familiarise players with the distinct challenges posed by different positions, and help them work on individual areas of development within the wider context of a team practice. Below, we examine the fundamentals of position-specific coaching, and how we can successfully embrace it within our sessions. In This Article Utilising Position-Specific Coaching Position-specific coaching can provide great opportunities to work on individual areas of learning with…
This week the question comes from our PDP coaching community platform: “Should my club run trials for players?” Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to hear from you! Here’s what you can do: 1. Tweet your questions to us @playerdp, or contact us on our Facebook page.2. PDP Members can chat directly with the PDP team to ask questions, share ideas, and support each other on our exclusive coaching community platform. Start…
Tactics are an important part of football. But how prominent should they be in our coaching when we’re working with younger players? As coaches, it’s sometimes easy to focus too heavily on tactics, perhaps at the expense of other crucial areas of development for the kids we’re working with. In this article, we consider when to include a tactical focus in our coaching, the importance of not overloading our players, and how to encourage tactical awareness while developing independent decision-makers. In This Article What do…
In this Live Session PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts builds on his previous work around forward passing, progressing his session with a group of U11 players to include a finishing component. This is the third part in a series of sessions focussed on playing through and around. This practice sees a continuation of the concept of the theme which allows players to find a pass to a player beyond lines who is tasked with scoring whilst defenders recover. The players have to choose the right moment to break lines…
In this PDP Live Session, PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts facilitates the second part of his session where the focus is on playing through and around opposition players. This session supports players understanding of space, utilising an 8 v 4 overload in favour of the possession team to find and exploit gaps. The defending team is incentivised with the opportunity to press or screen and subsequently score in the mini goals at each end. As with any PDP session, we strongly encourage you to take…
Passing and receiving are fundamental skills for developing players. In this live session, PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts shares an interference passing practice warm up which leads in to a session focussed on split passes and some key principles. In this session, James gets this group of U11 players moving with an interference practice designed to give the players high repetition with some elements of traffic and decision-making. The focus of part one is to get the players switched on and working on a range…
In this article, PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts shares some of his favourite passing and possession practices which can be adapted for players across all age groups. Like many coaches I love using rondos or small-sided positional games consistently in my sessions. There are so many variations that can be used, each with a variety of outcomes. I have implemented all the sessions below with a range of age groups from six-years-old right up to senior players, adapting the practices to suit the group in…
Coaches around the world are having to innovate with their session design as football training kicks off in some nations after the global pandemic. In this article, PDP Coaching Advisor, James Coutts shares some practical ideas for sessions that allow for social distancing. Like many coaches preparing to get back onto the grass I started designing my sessions for the various groups I’d be working with as football resumes with a whole new remit – social distancing. Most sessions I’d implemented prior to the Covid-19…
In this Player Development Project webinar replay, the PDP team present a webinar focussed on building possession and in particular, switching play. Hosted by Dave Wright with guest experts Dan Wright & James Coutts, we bring you a presentation with a number of practical sessions for you to adapt to your players. Topics to be covered for members during this conversation include: – What is switching play and why we do it– What principles may need to be applied?– Using lanes as a guide– Positional…