Coates Keen To Bounce Back (Emma Coates Coach Interview)

Emma Coates says a full pre-season has been genuinely valuable, giving her coaching staff time over Christmas to embed a club philosophy and playing framework the players have now been exposed to in training and friendlies. The biggest lesson of 2016 was managing a hybrid full-time and part-time model, and the training programme has been tweaked in response to injuries and player feedback while staying full-time. She refuses to use the cards the club was dealt as an excuse, but is blunt that the gulf between WSL 1 and WSL 2 is huge, as the Belles’ and Reading’s seasons showed. The Spring Series gives her room to develop competitively and gather intelligence before the winter campaign, without, she insists, lowering anyone’s expectations.