When Steve Round agreed to become Mikel Arteta’s assistant, he was quick to announce the news in an interview with talkSPORT.
Since then, much like predecessors, Steve Bould and Pat Rice, he’s kept a pretty low profile.
A few words with the Hartlepool Mail aside, we’ve not really heard anything from him at all. There’s not even been any chats with the club’s official website.
When quotes attributed to Round were shared on Twitter by @ZRAFC, our interest was piqued. However, after doing our usual digging (google) nothing turned up. We were stumped.
Blogs then did the sensible thing and asked where the quotes had come from and that’s how we ended up watching Round being interviewed by an American golf coach called Trillium Rose.
There’s a fair amount of golf chat but also some interesting insights into Round’s coaching philosophy and his working relationship with Arteta. Here are a few of the most relevant bits…
On his appointment and the coaching team…
“At Arsenal, we’ve got a head coach who is the boss, Mikel Arteta, and then under him there’s two assistants. We all came in together.
“I’d coached him previously at another club when he was a player and we kept a relationship going ever since.He got offered the job and rang me and asked if I’d come on and join his staff. I had no hesitation for two reasons.
“One, what a magnificent club Arsenal are…it’s just a great, great football club. It’s a massive club.
“The other thing [that attracted me], was to work with him [Mikel]. I knew he’d need a bit of experience and some knowledge from the domestic game. I think he’s got a real chance to become one of the best coaches in the world, let alone the UK. I didn’t hesitate to join.
“There’s another coach, Albert [Stuivenberg], who is very technical and tactical in his expertise. We’ve got Freddie Ljungberg who is an ex-player who is still involved as a coach and also a goalkeeper coach. That’s the inner circle.
“From that we’ve got people from other departments, a head of sports science, Shad Forsythe, a great guy who really knows his stuff. We’ve got a doctor as the head of the medical team and then there’s the Academy and there’s so many staff there. There must be 250 staff at the training ground that look after the first team and the Academy.
“We have a squad of around 25 first team players. There’s a mixture of some very talented young players who’ve come through the Academy and then players from around the world.”
On the set-up of coaching sessions…
“There is group training almost every day and we will train skill set, skill acquisition and technical every day. They still go through skill sets every day, whether that’s in the pre-training or after training, say for example, we might bring the two centre forwards back to do extra work on scoring. We may decide we want to do penalties. Every day there’s a theme around some form of skill acquisition.
“The middle bulk of the session is around the manager’s ideas of how we play; our methodology, this is how we play, this is what we do. Closer to the game, we start training for the opposition, so this is tweaking what we do to exploit the opposition’s weaknesses or tweak it to negate their strengths.”
On Arsenal’s youngsters…
“We have some very good young players coming through. Some are actually doing better and are further ahead of schedule than where we thought they would be. They’ve been thrown in at the deep end but we’re really pleased with some of our young players. They’ve come through the system and have been in the system for a while, a lot of them.”
On a consistent philosophy running through the club…
“Nearly every day I will have contact and talk to and communicate with the under-18s’ and under-23s’ coaches. I might sit with them at lunch, I might go and see them, I might go and have a coffee or cup of tea with them. We’ll talk football, player development, which players are doing well and golf!
“It’s so important that the communication lines are open, always transparent. I like to have an office door that’s always open. All of us as coaches within Mikel Arteta’s group have to be and will be very open to the rest of the coaches. It’s imperative that we’re all on the same wavelengths, singing off the same hymn sheet, have the same ideas and educating the players in the same way so that transition for a young player at 17 to step into the under-23s and then the first team is seamless.”
On the use of data…
“The biggest development in football [in recent years], and it’s the same in every sport, is the collection of data and metrics to predict and recruit. I think that has probably stemmed from Moneyball and the success they had there. You still have the eye on the ground, the scout, who goes and watches the players. If you have a really talented scout they are worth their weight in gold, they really are. Unlike in baseball, I don’t think in football you can go too far to data or too far to scouting, you have to have a nice blend of both. You need data to support what you’re trying to look for, what’s important to you and what fits in with your team logistics and metrics. It can throw up some really interesting players, particularly young players. But then, [you’ve got] to see that person play, the context in which they are playing, the standard of league, how he deals with setbacks, the crowd, opposition situations, how he trains, how he interacts with people…you need an experienced scout to go and see that. When you can quantify both and bring them all together, then you’ve got a successful solution. I don’t think you can be really successful with one without the other. Data over the last 10-15 years has come on leaps and bounds, definitely.
“We work with a company called StatDNA which is US-based. I’m not even going to start to begin to understand how they come up with these stats because it’s mind-boggingly boring. But these guys crunch the numbers, look at the data and come up with some fascinating stuff, they really do. Then, I’ll go and watch a player live and I’ll think they were bang on with that, spot on. If I really like the player and think his mentality is outstanding and the data backs it up, then I highly recommend we sign this player. Then you’ve got other factors in terms of money and fees but I don’t have to get involved in that.”
On building an elite culture…
“We’re continually working on emotional intelligence and leadership styles within the group, whether that’s the head coach, the two assitant head coaches or even the captains’ group within the team. How you formulate that is bringing togetherness, spirit. Humour is always a very good energy developer. You’re forever trying to build a resonant environment and take it away from dissonance. Discipline, self-discipline and making sure that our behaviour, positive behaviours are continually reinforced. Negative behaviours are pulled up, there are certain things we will not accept.
“If a teammate is showing disrespect to another teammate, perhaps the ball hasn’t come to him and he’s thrown his arms up. That’s telling the world this guy has made a mistake. We don’t blame like that. We don’t do that. If the guy has made a mistake our responsibility is to help him overcome that mistake. Our responsibility, me personally, is to try and make sure the next time he doesn’t make the same mistake again.
“You’re forever showing the players this and making them accountable and responsible for their actions. It’s making sure the environment you’re in and the culture you’re trying to build is consistent and consistent at the elite level. You’re consistently giving them the information that helps them become better players or helps them become a far better team and then you’re consistently enforcing the quality of behaviour that you want to see. There is no magical formula to generating a resonant and elite culture. It’s just every day getting all the little things right. Every day.”
For anyone wanting to watch the full interview, you can find it on Trillium’s YouTube page.
Wow that’s some really insightful stuff there, especially the part where they work on opposition’s weaknesses
Don’t want to jinx anything but I really like where this is going with Arteta, hope it pays off ?
I’d like to take this line, but I am curious – how does anyone distinguish this interview from others given over the years? How does this demonstrate a unique insight into what’s needed at this club? He hasn’t said anything wrong or outrageous, but I would’ve liked a bit more awareness of the situation he’s in. For example, when he says Arsenal is a massive club – fair. It still is, objectively. But I think an ambitious person would also take the opportunity to say (even without specifics) that there are some things which need drastic improvement, and that… Read more »
It’s an extract from a non Arsenal-centric youtube interview, given by one of arteta’s assistants. It’s sole purpose is not to help jumpy Arsenal fans sleep at night.
As Shool14 alludes to, it’s just a nice little insight into how the coaching set up works, and what they focus on in training day to day.
Nothing more, nothing less… just let it be that
“At Arsenal, we’ve got a head coach who is the boss, Mikel Arteta, and then under him there’s two assistants.
TWO assistants?
Then he talks about Stuivenberg and Ljungberg, but this first line makes mi think that Arteta never really made Freddie part of the setup. Sent him to watch games from the balcony, and never got him back. Now seems he has goalkeeping coach duties…
I think he meant that there is also a goalkeeping coach, not that Freddie is also doing that
You are right.
Poor Freddie, they have taken even that from him…:)
Freddie doesn’t have much coaching experience, he is working more closely with Mikel than he would otherwise be as U23’s or U18’s coach.
At one point Freddie did have more first team coaching experience than Arteta. I think it was after 3 games.
???
This is what we’ve longed for. Rewarding and reinforcing the right behaviors. Really encouraging to hear the coaching staff discuss this. Execution of this is the art of the job…. Hope they can do it.
“You’re forever trying to build a resonant environment and take it away from dissonance. Discipline, self-discipline and making sure that our behaviour, positive behaviours are continually reinforced.”
Always have this guy as my number 2 on fm…
Sounds like a G
Quite so
im hard
Arteta needs time to work, we have a talented group of young players, but the balance of our squad is wrong, the young players need time to grow, and our recruitment will need to improve considerably. I think Arteta will need two – three seasons to build a team, I just don’t see it happening overnight. Klopp needed three years, Guardiola took over the most expensively assembled squad in history, and needed another £350million net to win his first title, but is somehow considered a genius….. Hopefully the fans will have a bit more patience with Arteta than they did… Read more »
I agree. We lack the mid 20s age range a fair bit. We got exciting kids on one end and on the other end we got players coming off their peak (auba, laca, papa, luis, ozil etc)
I am worried how we will deal with our aging strikers. We need to bring in someone decent in the next year or so until our young strikers develop further. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have Gabby and Eddie take over from Auba until they are 23-24 years old.
The difference with Emery is that his philosophy was not the positive and attacking mindset we have come to expect out of Arsenal. He failed to rally players and fans and started to scapegoat or blame players by disregarding them instead of dealing with the problem and correcting it or taking the blame. In short, Emery was the wrong appointment. Wrong philosophy, wrong man management, wrong fan and press management had too much difficulty with communications. Arteta from day one made me think: Yes this is the direction my Arsenal needs to go. And he deserves the fan’s backing and… Read more »
Arsene had a wonderful philosophy, but the majority screamed for change, declaring more pragmatism was needed…. Mike Tyson famously said “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth” We don’t currently have anywhere near the quality to play the way City do. Emery finished 5th and got to a Europa final, but that was considered an underachievement, I don’t think with that group of players it was. In hindsight Emery was the wrong choice based on language and communication, he never quite cracked it, but the club failed when they tried to move on the likes of… Read more »
Good interview – give Steve a Round of applause.
and let’s give him a riches of likes
“Negative behaviours are pulled up, there are certain things we will not accept.
“If a teammate is showing disrespect to another teammate, perhaps the ball hasn’t come to him and he’s thrown his arms up. That’s telling the world this guy has made a mistake. We don’t blame like that. We don’t do that. If the guy has made a mistake our responsibility is to help him overcome that mistake”
Love this!
That ZRAFC account and others like it on football twitter are so cheeky – whatever info they find is stripped of most or all sourcing and presented like it’s their own personal scoop (gain more clout more clout).
Well done for doing proper journalism and sharing the original source. Steve Round will be a great addition to the club, smart man.
erm… except the original source is still not shared.
unless you follow the link at the bottom I failed to see. I take it all back.
Good interview, and nice to get some more insight. Personally I would prefer a system built on fear and discipline, like the Alex Ferguson system.
That just wouldn’t work in this day and age
Shouldn’t have worked in any day and age!!
In my opinion if the wrong person gets into a position of power it could lead to abuse both physically and mentally.
I agree. SAD.
There is no douth Ferguson was great manager but during his glory years he had no financial competition. United had all the money which gave them a huge advantage. Then some guy from Japan came and messed up his easy life. Fast forward few more years, Chelsea and City got billionaire owners, and that was the end of Ferguson, he knew he couldn’t bully teams with money si he left, and the rest is history. Man utd would kill to finish 4th.
I think this is a vast oversimplification. I doubt Ferguson ever frightened Eric Cantona, Steve Bruce, Roy Keane, or Mark Hughes. As for money, that obviously played a role–but Ferguson’s initial success was in large part based on academy players like Giggs, Beckham, and the Neville brothers (Aaron is my favourite).
Excellent piece. Thanks for finding it. It’s very encouraging.
I’m starting to see why Arteta was so keen to have him on board. Seems to be a really deep thinker about the game.
thanks for digging to find that interview for us Blogs! great read & some really encouraging stuff in there. COYG!!