Elite teams need players at the base of midfield capable of making passes that penetrate and unbalance the opposition. In this article, SkillCorner use their Game Intelligence data to assess the ability of defensive midfielders to penetrate an opposition defence.
The Premier League and National League are finalising plans for a new cup competition that will provide the opportunity for an additional 16 Category One Academies to pit their brightest talents against senior opposition. This means ALL Category One clubs will now get access to at least one senior competition.
Hugo Scheckter is a pioneer of player care in football. Now he's launching a digital platform that enables clubs to health check their player care provision, with AC Milan and Nottingham Forest among the first clients.
Gary Penn has been appointed to the new role of Head of Audit Development by the Professional Game Academy Audit Company.
NOW seemed a good time to showcase the women who are playing leading roles in the men's game, in roles spanning executive, coaching, Academy, performance, medical and data science.
PLAYER ownership of data is one of the big issues facing football and has been described as a wave that's about to come crashing in. Former Chelsea Head of Research and Innovation Ben Smith is now part of a company called BreakAway Data who believe they have the solution.
PREMIER LEAGUE clubs have voted to bring in a one-tier Swiss-style format for the Under-21s from the start of next season, Youth Hawk can reveal.
PREMIER LEAGUE 2 could become a one-tier competition with no promotion or relegation under proposals being considered by clubs, reports Youth Hawk.
FORMER Stoke City manager Tony Pulis says English clubs are “not doing enough to protect” youngsters who are released from Academies and is lobbying the Premier League to introduce a “dual scholarship system.”
FORMER Swansea City Academy Manager Nigel Rees has been appointed General Manager of the Professional Game Academy Audit Company (PGAAC). The Welshman had been doing the job on an interim basis since Gareth Prosser left to become Academy Manager at Everton in June 2022.
WITH the Professional Game Academy Audit Company (PGAAC) halfway through its first full-assessment audits, Gary Penn shines a light on what has been happening.
ALL Premier League clubs must have at least a Category Three Academy by the start of the 2024/25 season following new regulations.
KITMAN LABS have analysed the graduation rates between age groups and at the factors influencing them at a Premier League Category One Academy. Darcy Norman and Michael Bridges told us about the findings.
THE Premier League has launched pre-Academy regulations aimed at “clearly distinguishing” this age group from the official Academy programme that starts at Under-9s.
ALL Premier League and EFL clubs have been asked to give a three-year “commitment of support” to released Academy players under new rules passed by the Premier League.
PREMIER LEAGUE 2 will change to an Under-21 competition from next season. PL2 has been for U23s since the start of the 2016/17 season, but the Premier League said the rule change would “reflect the reality of the players in the competition”, whose average age is 19.
The Elite Player Performance Plan heralded a new era for youth development in this country. The architect of the system, Ged Roddy, looks back on the first decade of EPPP and outlines the risks and opportunities that lie ahead.
RICHARD GARLICK has left his role as Director of Football at the Premier League with immediate effect following the failed attempt to create a European Super League last week.
BREXIT has shut the door to English football for a lot of European players, but it has also opened one for the rest of the world. Dan Altman, founder of smarterscout, explains how clubs can properly evaluate players from far-flung leagues.
NEW research paints a picture of the typical Academy coach as being young, single, childless, underpaid and overworked - but nevertheless still happy in their role.
STEVE GUINAN, Senior Coach Developer at the Football Association, led a research team that looked into the challenges clubs face in recruiting and retaining the best coaches - and the results were intriguing.
DURING seven years at the Premier League, Simone Lewis transformed the way that coaches and coach educators were developed. She tells TGG about the initiatives that were introduced and how they brought about a culture change at Academies.
ALL players under the age of 16 have been given the green light to return to Academies for training from March 8th and in matches from the weekend of 27/28th March.
PREMIER LEAGUE backroom staff have been put on alert over a new Twitter account that monitors their activity in the Fantasy Premier League game.
FORMER Swindon Town manager Iffy Onuora has been appointed as the Premier League’s first Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and will start the role in April.
ACADEMY matches and training for the U15s downwards are to stop until February 1st at the earliest - but the Professional Development Phase will continue.
THE Premier League is rolling out a 90-minute rapid covid test for players returning from international duty in an effort to get them quickly back into training grounds ahead of the weekend’s fixtures.
ALL football in Category One and Two Academies will continue during lockdown, despite the government previously saying that only 'elite' sport, involving players aged 16 and over, would carry on.
THE Premier League is providing its clubs with synchronised tracking and event data for the first time, in what has been described as a “democratisation of data”.
SKILLCORNER finally answer the question of which of the 'Big 5' leagues is the most physically demanding, by analysing physical performance according to intensity, sprinting and volume.
MANCHESTER UNITED'S Tony Whelan, Chelsea's Neil Bath and Leicester City’s Trevor Peake have received the 2020 Eamonn Dolan award for their exceptional contribution to Academy coaching.
SIMONE LEWIS, the Premier League’s Head of Learning and Development since 2013, has left the organisation by mutual consent.
THE Premier League and PFA are funding a new coach placement scheme aimed at increasing the number of BAME players moving into full-time coaching roles in the professional game.
THE Premier League will not restart the Academy games programme until 12th September at the earliest, following a vote of shareholders last week - and no date has yet been set for a return to training.
SMARTERSCOUT founder Dan Altman reveals the six roles he's seen most often in data departments during his work with teams around the world.
THE third and final stage of Project Restart gets underway tomorrow, with Aston Villa taking on Sheffield United to mark the return of Premier League action after the coronavirus pandemic.
STUDENTSHIPS are becoming increasingly popular in pro football. Sofie Kent-Ryan reflects on her experiences with a Category One Academy and offers advice to those following in her footsteps.
PREMIER LEAGUE clubs have voted unanimously to resume full contact training, which is Stage Two of Project Restart.
THE Premier League will begin regulating pre-Academy football for the first time from next season, but there will be no minimum age at which players can train with clubs.
THE Premier League is asking clubs to share their performance data in order to ensure they do not gain a competitive advantage from new Project Restart protocols.
PREMIER LEAGUE clubs are preparing to ramp up training to include small groups of players within the next fortnight.
THE Premier League has outlined a best-case scenario of players being able to return to their clubs for training on Monday May 18th.
PROFESSIONAL football in Britain has been suspended until at least the start of June as a result of the spread of coronavirus. Here is a guide to what is happening at Premier League and EFL clubs in response to the crisis.
PREMIER LEAGUE doctors have held a special meeting to discuss their response to the coronavirus pandemic.
GED RODDY, the architect of the EPPP system, shares his guide to the core functions of an elite football Academy.
GED RODDY, the architect of the EPPP system, says new figures showing an increase in playing time for English Under-21s in the Premier League prove “long-term investment in youth is finally paying off”.
DAMIAN RODEN is leaving the Seattle Sounders after 18 months to return to the UK as a Sports Science and Medical Performance Support Auditor.
WHO's who of a modern performance team, explained by the practitioners in their own words.
FORMER England and Arsenal Head Physio Gary Lewin has called on the Premier League to carry out a “meaningful injury audit”, arguing that medical teams are being judged on data “they know is not accurate”.
THE trade in backroom staff in the Premier League has almost outpaced the turnover of players this summer.
WHY are there just only English managers in the Premier League, when all but one of the bosses in Serie A is Italian?
THE Premier League is poised to announce its new Director of Football, having completed interviews with the shortlisted candidates.
RIO FERDINAND, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard tell BT Sport that club rivalries played a major part in the 'Golden Generation' failing to realise its potential.
FITNESS COACH Matt Green has left West Brom after 10 years to become Elite Performance Manager at the Premier League.
SUNDERLAND'S Dr James McCarron has been appointed to the new role of Elite Performance Manager by the Premier League.
GED RODDY is leaving the Premier League after eight years following a mutual decision that his role of Director of Football Development “will no longer be required in the medium to long term”.