Wes Hughes believes the opportunity for three academy groups to all train within the same environment has provided a variety of positive benefits.
The club’s under-16s, 18s and 21s have spent seven nights in Bratislava as part of their 2023/24 preparations and for the first time in pre-season, all three squads have been based at the same facility. Hughes, who is the youth phase lead coach at under-15 and 16 level, has praised the smooth operation across departments throughout the week and says that the set-up offers opportunity for collaboration, adaptability and the full experience.
On the experience in Slovakia
“It’s been great changing the environment. The hardest thing in football is to do it again and I always think if you can keep the experience as fresh as possible for the players and staff, then it’s better.
“You don’t want it to be monotonous, so from a pre-season perspective, it’s been great. We’ve changed the environment and certainly the weather – it’s been really warm out here which is something we’re not used to in England.
“The players have shown great ability to adapt and deal with the conditions. We’ve also had to adapt because originally we’d planned to do sessions at 11am and 12pm. We looked at the weather since coming out here and have moved our sessions to 9am.
“That’s moved everything forwards – bedtime has been moved, food times have moved and from an operational perspective, that’s been challenging at times.”
On the facilities on site
“We’ve worked on two pitches with three groups of players, so there’s been lots of collaborations throughout the multi-disciplinary teams and also the coaching teams.
“It’s been first-team standard and I can’t put anything past it. There are two first-team squads here using the facility and some of our boys will hopefully transition to first-team soon.
“The facility is of that standard so anyone who falls below that will see themselves quite lucky to be utilising these great facilities.
“There are endless amounts of things to do if you’re an athlete or aspiring athlete. There’s swimming, bike riding, walks around a 30km lake and there’s all sorts of things to do to occupy yourself.”
On player development
“Pre-season’s about the full experience, the social side of it and challenging yourself psychologically. It’s really important that it’s not all on the pitch.
“It’s on the football pitch where players are going to be judged, but I think if players are going to develop holistically, then they add a little bit more value to whatever team or environment they go into.
“This environment has helped them in that respect and developed them a little bit further down their journey.”
On three groups going away in the same environment
“I’ve been around this game for a while now and certainly the development side of it, I’ve been around for 13/14 years now.
“I’ve never been in an environment where we’ve been fortunate enough to have 15s to 21s all training on the same site abroad in a wonderful facility.
“The benefits it’s had are unbelievable. The accessibility to 21s coaches to the senior management team to the operational team to the sports science and medical department.
“For the players, there’s that constant feedback loop whether you’re seeking feedback on what you’ve done as a practitioner or what the plans are for the 21s and how that impacts the 16s.
“All our gamedays are the same day, our training sessions have all been on the same days. We’ll have played two games out here and that smooth transition between the groups has been second to none.”
On the close collaboration between staff
“Moving forwards for myself, I’d like to learn from it and see how we can adapt when we go back to our normal environment, how we can carry forward some of the practices.
“Some of the collaboration has been excellent to be honest and the openness from the staff right across the departments has been unbelievable.
“It just makes your lives so much easier when you can actually get that information readily, adapt and make it a really good experience for the lads on and off the pitch.”
On learning more about the players
“We’ve learnt a lot about the players. One of the things I’m big on is understanding the individual as a person and what makes them tick.
“We’ll have our ideals as people, we’ll have a set of values that we live by as a club. Ultimately, everyone is different. Until you take them away from their comfort zones and their normal environments, you don’t really understand how they work as people, what drives them and what motivates them as people to be better and help others be better people.
“It hasn’t been all plain sailing – some of the more talented individuals I’ve worked with are challenging and they’re not just run-of-the-mill type characters who just get on with it. We do have to adapt and learn how to work with challenging people.
“These challenging minds are sometimes what sets them to greatness and as coaches we can learn from that. We’ve got to learn how elite mindsets work and there’s a lot of work we can do to get to understand them.
“It’s important to keep experimenting without moving away from your core values, I think that’s really important.”
