Our Academy
Coaching
The Arsenal Way
Our Academy mission of creating the most challenging and caring football academy in the world defines what we, as Coaches, do. That is why we constantly work towards being the most challenging and caring coaching team in world football.
Player Focused, Coach Directed
The development of each individual player sits at the centre of everything we do: our Academy is Player focused and Coach directed.
This means we continue to develop and evolve players by age and position. We provide individual and team coaching curriculums that ensure our players constantly develop in all our pillars:
- Champion Mentality (Football Leadership)
- Most Efficient Mover (Football Fitness)
- Lifelong Learner (Football Knowledge)
- Effective Team Player (Football Performance)
These programmes are reviewed monthly with the Head of Coaching, Lead Phase Coach and Head Coaches.
Every player matters and we do everything we can to enable each individual to thrive as a Strong Young Gunner.
Quantity and Quality
Quantity
We have three Coaches in every age group. This provides a greater coach-to-player ratio which, in turn, improves focus on position specifics as well as individual technical development.
Each coach has a specific role. The Head Coach focus is on team tactics, playing style and team organisation. One Assistant Coach focuses on individual techniques, football coordination and position specifics and the other Assistant Coach focuses on decision making, game insight and positioning.
Quality
We provide every coach with a varied and detailed coach education programme that provides a menu of learning opportunities to ensure the environment creates staff that are also life-long learners. This menu includes:
- Individual: Technical, tactical and social support.
- Small group: Technical phase playing specific workshops.
- All academy: Aligning playing style from U9 to U23 and into our first team.
Style of Play
We have absolute clarity in how we develop our U9s right through to our U23s concerning our style of play and how we develop individuals and teams to play the Arsenal Way.
With a big focus on individual player development, we lead on player progress meetings using a multi-disciplinary approach that ensures an holistic approach to each players’ specific Individual Development Plan (IDP). Each IDP links in with the Academy playing style of ‘aiming for every single player to master the ball, so every one of our teams are able to dominate possession of the ball’
Through a varied and challenging games programme we have a big focus on ‘Every Player Matters’. At this Academy the last people we blame are the players. We ensure that we have the right games, right training and the right opportunities for the right players.
Our increased number of Coaches support the demands for more games and our Football Education Programme provides clarity and alignment of our playing identity, playing style and playing formations through the phases.
We are proud to play our part in producing Strong Young Gunners.
World-Leading Analysis
Within the Academy’s overall mission our goal is to be the World’s leading Football Analysis Department, providing the Coaching Staff with all the tools and services they need to provide information to players in the most effective and efficient way.
Working closely with the Academy Coaches we provide reflective feedback to benchmark players, identify and monitor areas of development and provide best practice learning materials. We also support players to develop their FootbALL Knowledge as Lifelong learners. As with all other staff, we are also committed Lifelong Learners, continuing to push technologies and ourselves to find more intuitive and better ways to engage with and prepare our players.
Our ultimate goal is to aid Coaches in the development of more intelligent Arsenal footballers with improved tactical and technical performance, improved game understanding and on-field decision making: critical to creating Effective Team Players.
Each specialist department supports the coaching teams’ focus on providing the best possible levels of challenge and care for our players.
Education
Performance
Talent ID
Operations
Education
Education
Lifelong Learner
Better People
Better Players
Our Role
Our education programme is designed to produce top quality footballers and people, who will become leaders and role models on and off the pitch: individuals who have a passion for lifelong learning and personal development (Lifelong Learners).
We strongly believe that better people make better players.
All players attend their own schools with the friends they have grown up with until the end of Year 11, as we believe this provides a healthy balance between life as a football player and a normal family life away from football.
On and off the grass
We liaise closely with schools to monitor the progress of each player and provide one-to-one support if a player is falling behind.
We also liaise closely with our coaching team to ensure each player has the correct blend of challenge and care as they develop themselves on and off the grass.
We always aim to minimize the amount of time boys are out of school, so we don’t run a traditional Day Release programme. Instead, we run one early training session a week for each age group in the Youth Development Phase.
Our Goal
In the Professional Development Phase all boys follow a two-year apprenticeship which includes an education programme tailored to the individual. Boys can choose from a wide variety of subjects and most will study two A-Levels or a Btec equivalent.
After completing their two-year apprenticeship all players have the opportunity and are encouraged to continue their education: in football and in life. They can continue with a further one or two A-Level subjects, start a degree programme, or choose to do something different, like learn a new language or non-academic skill.
Performance
Performance
Movement Efficiency
Increase Robustness
Football Performance
Our Role
The Performance Department works collectively towards the overall goal of the Arsenal Academy to create the most challenging and caring environment in Youth Football. Our operations are integrated into the fabric of the decision-making processes adopted by the Academy Manager and coaches, assisting the delivery of both the short and long-term performance goals of players.
The key objectives of the Performance Department are to enhance movement efficiency, increase robustness and improve football performance: FootbALL Fitness (Most Efficient Movers).
We aim to maximise player availability; for playing, coaching sessions and football skill development.
Reaching Player potential
Using the latest research and applied knowledge, the Performance staff implement training strategies to ensure that all players are optimally equipped to meet the physical demands of the game.
A long-term structured approach is essential to ensure players reach their full potential throughout their Academy journey. At each developmental phase, the identified performance staff are responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of football fitness and strength and conditioning activities (pitch or gym-based) that are aligned and integrated into training schedules. This is supported and underpinned by the Academy’s Long Term Athletic Development Pathway, which identifies the stages of a player’s development.
An evidence-based approach, combined with relative and up-to-date technologies allows Performance staff to actively monitor and assess the physical condition of all Academy players to ensure optimal training volume and load, helping to reduce potential injury risk.
Our Goal
The Performance staff maintain a systematic approach to physiological and anthropometrical testing throughout the Foundation, Youth Development and Professional Development phases, ensuring a permanent “Test – Intervention – Review” practice.
The department has a passion to move the profession forward through the introduction of new innovative methods and techniques that benefit the player.
Talent ID
Talent ID
Identify
Secure
Retain
Our Role
To support of the overall Academy vision of producing Strong Young Gunners we have a clear and over-riding objective in everything we do:
To Identify, Secure & Retain the Best Domestic and International Talent with the potential to become Strong Young Gunners.
This is the mantra of the Talent ID department in the Academy: it is our aim to be at the forefront of recruitment of talent within the London area whilst also having a footprint across the UK and internationally. Our main coverage is London, looking at recruiting potential Talents from grassroots, whilst monitoring the development of players in the surrounding Academies. We also recognise the importance of operating a Pre-Academy through from U6s-U8s, with the provision of Development Centres for these age groups to receive coaching and further develop their potential.
Identify
The Pillars used in the development of the young players already signed in the Academy provide a recruitment template for our identification of young talents.
The Pillars – Effective Team Player, Efficient Mover, Champion Mentality and Lifelong Learner – inform the key areas we identify in potential players for Arsenal, documenting football actions in each pillar when watching players as well as taking into account their character and attitude. The characteristics of Respect, Discipline and Humility are fundamental building blocks for any player joining the Arsenal Academy.
To ensure we don’t have an individuals’ biased opinion on a player we practice a ‘multiple eyes, multiple times’ approach, where we send a different scout each week to report on a player. The report then gets filed on the Academy database where the reports are read and discussed by the Phase Coordinators. This is followed by our weekly Fixture Meeting where a different scout is assigned to watch the player.
We also understand that building strong partnerships and networks within our local communities can help us to find undiscovered talent.
Secure
Once we have accumulated enough reports on a player, we meet to make our assessment, adopting a multi-disciplinary approach in the context of the Pillars where all aspects of a players’ suitability for the Arsenal Academy are taken into account, drawing on input from our leading specialists, by discipline.
Every single player we recommend has the potential to become a Strong Young Gunner.
Retain
Retaining Strong Young Gunners at the Academy is the role of every member of the Academy. A three-way partnership is built between the player and their family, the staff and the club, all based on the Academy standards of Respect, Discipline and Humility. We all live by and work towards our firmly held belief that “Every Player Matters”.
Domestic & International Talent
We have refocused our attention on the talent that resides in and around London, we see the city of London as a talent pool within itself. We have a more strategic coverage with our Scouts covering the schoolboy U9-U16 age groups, with a specific Lead Phase Coordinator to oversee the recruitment in each phase. This is also extended to the rest of the UK and Internationally.
Every week our Scouts will be covering games at grassroots and Academy football around the capital and beyond, looking for any potential players who could become Strong Young Gunners.
Operations
Operations
Logistics
Administration
Player Care
Our Role
For players and staff to be the best they can be, means that we need to provide the best possible logistical, administrative and player care support across the Academy to facilitate our day-to-day working. That’s what the Operations department is all about. We oversee the games programme and work with the coaches and multidisciplinary team to make it as varied, comprehensive and impactful as possible.
We also organise multiple tours and tournaments as well as our Strong Young Gunners programme that delivers a broad range of life skills and experiences, from leadership workshops to community support initiatives, that provide players with opportunities, on and off the grass, to learn and develop in new and challenging environments.
Feel Supported
Our Player Care Managers are here to ensure every player in the Academy feels supported and that they have a voice. And our kit team make sure everyone looks great in their Arsenal training and match kit! Beyond the Arsenal family we also work with the Premier League to make sure we’re at the forefront of continuing to drive the development of academy football across the country.
Our Goal
Our role is also to help everyone stay connected to deliver the Strong Young Gunners vision. So, whether you’re a player, parent, or staff member we’ll keep you up to speed, helping to tie together all aspects of academy life through FootbALL performance, fitness, knowledge, and leadership. By working to bring together all academy functions into a clear and progressive programme our goal is to make every player’s journey unique and challenging as they strive to become Strong Young Gunners.