THE LOWDOWN EPISODE #120 - BUILDING STRONG YOUNG GUNNERS w/ DES RYAN

"It took 1 hour to plan but 9 years to consistently implement it".Des Ryan is the Director of Coaching & Performance at Setanta College. Furthermore he was also the Head of Sports Medicine & Athletic Development from 2013-2021.Des is a leading practitioner in the field and is widely regarded for his body of work at Arsenal's academy. With the help of Arsene Wenger, Liam Brady and Colin Lewin, Des helped to build an athletic framework in line with the club's overarching football philosophy.Playing the infinite game of development, Des and his former colleagues still see the fruits of this labour to this very day with a significant proportion of academy graduates moving into first team football in Europe's top 5 leagues.This is truly a great listen as to the impact which an interdisciplinary team can achieve with the right vision, mission and values.Listen to find out more including;- How the football philosophy lives & breathes at Arsenal?- Implementation of the athletic development framework at Arsenal?- Distributing skin in the game to make the philosophy sticky.- How vision and mission align decision making from top down in an academy setting?- Des' tips for innovation and effecting change with limited resources. - Inside the physical development of Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah.Timestamps;00:00 - 04:30 - Intro04:31 - 08:58 - Athletic Framework08:59 - 14:54 - "Strong Young Gunners"14:55 - 23:55 - Change23:56 - 32:44 - Culture of Growth32:45 - 48:08 - Inside the Programme48:09 - 52:23 - AdviceArsenal Research Paper; SCJ_Developing-world-class-players_2017.pdf (setantacollege.com)GAA Sports Science Paper; Launch of new Sports Science framework for Gaelic Games (gaa.ie)