The St. Gallen Save: My Approach to Training

In this series I'm trying to bring together all elements of Football Manager as part of a cohesive strategy aimed at propelling St. Gallen to the top of Swiss football & beyond. I'm not an expert in any aspect of the game, but there are some parts I know less about, or have ignored all together. The aim of this series is to learn & improve as I go...

In this post I'll be trying to get to grips with the part of the game I've arguably been guilty of using the least. Training. I'm almost embarrased to admit I've neglected training more or less entirely, as it is such a core part of building and developing any football club.

If you're aiming to build a specific brand of football, training plays a crucial part in boosting players tactical understanding and developing the attributes you need to be successful. If you're aiming to put a big focus on player development, training can really help maximise their progress. You can also fine-tune each players style through the use of Player Traits, and utilise Mentoring groups to have your experienced players take some of the younger players in the group under their wing with a view to passing on positive personality traits.

While all of this sounded great to me, I've never properly used it.

Any time I ventured into the training screen, it just all seemed like there were too many options and too much going on. Any time I watched a video or read a guide to try and learn, it all just felt a bit...overwhelming. But it had come to a point where I really wanted to try and learn, and I reasoned that if I made mistakes and got things wrong - fine. Even if it was a case of trial & error, I had to learn somehow.

So I tried to think about what I wanted to get out of training, and made a list:

• Focus on sessions which boosted the attributes I feel I need from my preferred style of play.

• Keep my players fit, and avoid over-working them to the point of injury.

• Pick a small group of players with the aim of developing their attributes.

• Try to use Player Traits to further fine-tune my style of play.

So let's get into it.

Making it Make Sense

In a previous post I touched on the general attributes I felt would be the most important for the style of play I was attempting to create. I'll link to the post here in case anyone wants to go back and read it, but here is a snippet below.

In possession I want to dominate the opponent and build from the back, so realistically it is important that most, if not all, my players are comfortable in possession. So I'm probably looking at First Touch, Passing, Technique, Composure & Decisions as being key attributes for building a possession-based style.

Out of possession, I mentioned that I want my team to react quickly and press high up the pitch. So I need players who have the intelligence to read the game, the willingness to work hard and follow their instructions to shut the opponent down and put them under pressure, as well as having the physical capability to actually do it effectively. So I'm maybe looking at Anticipation, Aggression, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Acceleration, Pace & Stamina as being the important attributes for becoming an effective pressing side.

I'm no expert, but I think that makes sense, and so when checking out the training session options, I just tried to pick sessions which focused a lot on these attributes.

The names of each of the sessions do a fairly good job of giving you an idea of what it does, but reading the little description and the list of effects makes everything super clear for you. If I can understand it, you can understand it too.

A typical week might look something like the below.

The sessions I'll utilise most are:

• Attacking Patient.

• Defending Engaged, Ground Defence, Defending From The Front.

• Chance Creation, Ball Distribution, Transition - Press, Ball Retention, Play From The Back.

• Attacking Shadow Play, Defensive Shadow Play.

I'll often use Quickness training if we have a full week, and try and rotate in sessions that focus on the GKs.

Having read through each of the sessions and their impact, these are my preferred sessions for implementing my style of play.

Fit For Purpose

A big goal for training this season was, essentially, to keep the players fit and ready for every match possible. The style of play is quite intense and demanding, and with a small core of players who I trust to carry out the style, it is important for me to keep that core of players injury free. The winter World Cup has caused a bit of havoc with the fixture scheduling, and with the likes of FC Basel, Young Boys & FC Zurich having European Group Stage commitments it puts them at a bit of a disadvantage and could give us a real opportunity to mount a real title challenge.

So the intensity of training is often fairly low, possibly at the expense of individual player development, but that is something I hope to be able to focus more on in future seasons when we have greater squad depth and we can afford to rotate the team a bit more comfortably.

So, did we manage to reduce injuries at all?

According to our Head of Sports Science, we suffered 76 injuries throughout the series - a 40% decrease on the expected total. On first viewing, that seems pretty good to me, but I'll probably need to compare those to next seasons numbers to get a better idea.

Player Development

This is something I haven't been able to focus on all that much this season. As mentioned above, I've prioritised less strenuous tactical work and recovery sessions with the intention of maximising Team Cohesion/Tactical Familiarity and injury prevention ahead of individual player development.

While game time is probably more valuable in terms of player development, training also has a big part to play in shaping player attributes and there were a couple of players I earmarked as ones I wanted to focus a little more on. Lawrence Ati-Zigi, Leonidas Stergiou, Matej Maglica, Isaac Schmidt, Randy Schneider, Julian Von Moos & Alessio Besio were all highlighted as players at a good age that I thought I could potentially develop.

This one screenshot doesn't necessarily reflect the development of the players, or their performance in training throughout the season, but we did typically see these kind of ratings pretty consistently throughout our first season. All of the players mentioned were generally trending in the right direction but obviously they didn't all develop at the same pace.

Lawrence Ati-Zigi - established himself as the undisputed no. 1. We saw a pretty good improvement with point increases in his Command of Area, Anticipation & Concentration. His form this season has attracted interest from Burnley & 1. FC Koln.

Leonidas Stergiou - he arguably developed the best of the bunch, with the individual focus on Jumping Reach having an impact and an increase in several of his mental attributes. He only managed 23 starts this season due to injury, so I'm hoping his development can kick on even more next season if he stays injury free. He has been the subject of interest from Fulham, Sevilla & Borussia Dortmund this season.

Matej Maglica - played 37 games and performed exceptionally well. He is ticking along nicely, but hasn't seen any massive improvements this season. He is currently being watched by Schalke 04.

Isaac Schmidt - 13 starts and 14 sub appearances highlight his squad player status. He has been re-training to play as a right-back and has been doing OK, with a big increase in determination and I think he can continue as a useful rotation player for a good few years.

Randy Schneider - I've been so pleased with his development and he really established himself as a key player this season, with 11 goals and 5 assists in 32 appearances. At just 21 I think he can continue to develop a lot in the next few seasons.

Julian Von Moos - made 32 appearances this season and has become a very useful player for us, with his versatility being a big bonus. He has seen a 2 point increase in both his Anticipation and his Determination. He's only 22 so I hope to develop him further.

Alessio Besio - made 22 appearances and score 7 goals, scoring 0.71 goals per 90. At 19 that is a great ratio and he has proven to be a capably understudy. His attributes have seen a good increase, but he probably needs more game time to continue developing.

So have I learned anything?

• Injury prevention was better than average, but can it be even better? WIth increased squad depth I can rotate more which can offset some of the match load for key players.

• Player development was generally OK. Some of the younger players improved really nicely and things are generally moving in the right direction, but is that just a case of young players getting better naturally? Has my training got the most out of them, or has game time been the more important factor?

• I haven't really dived into things like Mentoring, or Player Traits yet. These can be massive tools for shaping young players and really tailoring individuals to suit a specific purpose in your system.

Join me next time as I'll be taking a look at the stats and analysing whether our tactical decisions worked as expected, and taking a look at our performance as a whole. Thanks for reading!