Stephanie Pride talks to Howard Wilkinson about the future of youth coaching in England and possible regrets he has from an illustrious career
WSC Do you feel there is still a suspicion in this country of bringing the more technical aspects of coaching into the game?
Howard Wilkinson Yes, there’s a cultural attitude which is, if you like, anti-coaching, or against having an analytical attitude to sport, and it does make life difficult because it colours everyone’s attitude. It’s come out recently when we’ve had foreign players who start to talk about the differences and make negative comparisons with the preparation they’ve been used to. It comes out with foreign coaches coming in – people like Arsène Wenger. The sort of preparation that he employs I don’t think is that much different to the sort of preparation that others would employ, nor would it be fundamentally different to that which I would employ, but because Arsène’s come in and done it, it’s had a positive influence. People say “ah well, it’s come from abroad, it must be good, it’s worked there” – and I think that’s good.
