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What did the player see before he moved? Did he scan?
Reading the Game — Vol. 1
The Developing Winger · Paperback & Kindle
£12.99Buy the Book
Reading the Game is built to be run, not just read. Every chapter ends with a practice designed for a normal group on a normal night — and a shared language, IDER, for reviewing what your players actually saw.
By the time a wide player reaches your group, most already have a functional touch. What separates the ones who progress is rarely another metre of pace — it's how early and how accurately they read the picture.
That skill — scanning, recognising cues, anticipating — develops through deliberate observation and feedback, not repetition alone. Players who are taught what to look for, and then reviewed on it, start to see it sooner.
Two players in one space is one problem. Two players in two spaces is two. Your job is to make them see the second option.
The book gives you a structure for that: a clear idea per session, a real-match reference, and a way to talk about decisions separately from outcomes.
Four questions, asked in order, about one passage of play. Keeping them apart is the point — a sound decision can be executed badly, and a poor decision can still come off. It turns "well done" and "unlucky" into coachable detail.
What did the player see before he moved? Did he scan?
What did he choose to do with that information?
How well did he carry the decision out?
What did he do in the second after — recover, reset, follow up?
The film studies aren't just for the player at home. Here's the loop coaches use to turn a chapter into a session that changes behaviour.
Play the chapter's Elite Lens film. Ask the group what the player off the ball is doing — not the player on it.
Agree the one trigger you're training tonight — the scan, the stagger, the timed run — so everyone knows what "good" looks like.
Use the chapter's Coach's Practice. Each one lists objective, organisation, progressions, regressions and load/welfare notes.
Freeze a moment. Ask the four questions in order. Reward the right decision even when the outcome didn't come off.
By the second or third cycle, let the player pick the priority and bring his own clips. Ownership is the goal.
Every chapter ends with a session I can actually run on a Tuesday. IDER has changed how my players talk about their own decisions.
Finally a resource that separates the decision from the result. My feedback got sharper the same week.
The film studies are gold for team talks — the players see the off-ball work instantly.
// SAMPLE — replace with verified coach reviews before launch.
Fourteen chapters, fourteen films, fourteen practices — and one shared language for reviewing decisions. Paperback & Kindle.