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...that this hugely successful ex player and St Mirren legend was at the World Cup ?

England’s model coach giving strikers a helping hand

Former Airdrie player Allan Russell has recast himself as ‘No 1 Striker Coach in the World’ and is helping Harry Kane become a star in Russia

Jonathan Northcroft, Football correspondent

June 24 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Thinking ahead: Russell is an innovator whose work is appreciated by England strikers

Thinking ahead: Russell is an innovator whose work is appreciated by England strikers

Any patch can be a field of dreams if the players dream big enough and for two ambitious guys back in 2015, the work was more important than the playing surface. They trained in municipal parks and public playing fields, on whatever grass they could find. The drills were repetitive, sometimes exhausting — but both believed. One was a young striker, who in three short years had catapulted from Hinckley Town to Burnley, the Conference North to the Championship. Work ethic had got him there and he was always seeking ways to push himself further. The other was a young coach, little known in England but a man who, even when he was low down football’s food chain, always thought “high-end” according to his friends. Just back from America, he had no qualms about marketing himself “the world’s No 1” in his field: gallusness, they call that, in his native Glasgow. The pair were Andre Gray and Allan Russell, and look at them now.

Gray was one of Russell’s first major clients in his remarkable rise from ex-St Mirren, Airdrie, Macclesfield and Carolina RailHawks forward, to England striker coach. He took up that position in March 2017 and in Volgograd, after Harry Kane’s winner against Tunisia, it was he who Gareth Southgate and Steve Holland embraced in a three-way man-hug. Kane’s goals were a fine advert for Russell, given that exercises to enhance movement were a key element the coach developed under his trademarked programme, Superior Striker. Both Kane’s goals were examples of brilliant, predatory positioning in the box from a striker on the move, followed by calm, clear-minded finishing. Russell’s work also promotes staying cool and technical in the heat of a chance arriving.

Russell’s next task is to get attacking players other than Kane scoring. The combined record of Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli is eight goals in 98 internationals — so even the “world’s No 1” has his work cut out. Gray, though, has no doubts about his effectiveness. The first season they worked together he scored 25 goals for Burnley; the next, after promotion to the Premier League, a creditable 10. Last summer, when moving to Watford, he became an £18.5m striker — some progress for a player who did not start a Football League game until he was 23. Back in 2015, “a friend who I used to play against mentioned [Russell] to me,” says Gray. “He said check this guy out. Allan had just come back from America. We spoke and just took it from there.” Gray had just joined Burnley from Brentford and, as Danny Ings’ replacement, had plenty to live up to — but his journey had always been about graft and small gains.

“Definitely, it’s all about getting that extra one or two per cent,” Gray says. “That’s me as a player. I always think I have a lot to improve on and ‘how can I do that?’ What you do behind the scenes is important. Things that are specific to my position really interest me.”

From the beginning, Gray loved the detail in Russell’s approach. “With Allan, we started off with a lot of basic stuff and then got into what was specific to me. Shots that I was missing, he would slow it down and look at things like body position. We’d look at movements and it got more and more advanced.” Russell would analyse Burnley games and break down for Gray the best movements for a striker to make within Sean Dyche’s set-up, tailoring their drills accordingly. One problem. Even today, striker-specific coaching is in its infancy — back then it was even more unusual and so Gray and Russell had to do their work away from the training ground. “We’d be finding parks in Manchester, loads of random places really. Sometimes they weren’t the best pitches but we did what we could,” Gray remembers.

They continue working together to this day and Gray regrets not being able to do as many sessions with Russell last season — when he scored only five times — as in the previous two campaigns. “We’ve spoken and this season I’d like to do them every week,” Gray says. What has Russell helped him improve most? “Thinking about my movement. Concentrating on striking the ball clean — I used to be a lot more irrational with my shooting. There’s still a lot of work for me to do but it benefited me a lot.”

The “extra 1%” approach fits the marginal gains culture of the current England set-up and it typifies Southgate that he has gone for Russell on the basis of expertise, rather than a bigger name to work with Kane and Co. The players like him. “He has gone down very well with them. He gets on with them and the main thing is they think the training is good — beneficial to them as strikers,” said a source.

Russell’s history suggests he would be far from overawed working with stars. He did male modelling as a sideline when he was playing, and he was onstage in a routine with Christina Aguilera at the 2003 MTV Awards. His playing career finished in Los Angeles, with Orange County Blues, and it was there he started his first coaching company, Dominate Soccer Training. He was largely working with youngsters but that did not stop Russell having a clothing range based on the company’s logo. To those who knew him in his playing days, his success is no surprise. Marc Smyth, a centre-half, car-shared with Russell at Airdrie in the then Scottish Second Division in 2007-08. “My overriding though about Allan is that whatever he decided to do with his life it was always going to be high-end, because he genuinely believed he was the best at everything he did,” Smyth said.

In the spotlight: Russell tried out male modelling during his playing days at St Mirren, and was on stage with Christina Aguilera in Edinburgh in 2003In the spotlight: Russell tried out male modelling during his playing days at St Mirren, and was on stage withChristina Aguilera in Edinburgh in 2003

“I don’t meant that in an arrogant way, because he was a great lad. He just had a confidence in himself. He wasn’t the kind you could take the p*** out of in the dressing room, because you just wouldn’t get anywhere.” The family of Russell’s wife ran an equestrian centre in Ayrshire “and being around that he’ll have picked up business skills and met people with money and influence who he’ll have learnt off and kept contact with.

“From memory he also went into the car game for a while but again it was top-of-the range-stuff, leasing to the top earners. That’s his mindset, to be the best at whatever he does. It doesn’t surprise me he had the courage to launch himself as the No 1 Striker Coach in the World — because apart from the fact it was eye-catching he’ll have genuinely seen himself as the best.”

Even in the Scottish Second Division, Russell “was gluten-free when most of us didn’t know what gluten was. He was bringing his own lunch to training, salmon and broccoli, protein shakes”. Smyth recalls other players laughing at their ambitious teammate initially but eventually following suit and also following another of his unusual habits — going to the gym before training. “I predict that in 10 years what he’s doing will be the norm for every club and every country, the way he was 10 years ahead with his diet,” said Smyth.

Russell is no miracle-worker — Rafa Benitez’s staff at Newcastle noted he had little impact on Aleksandar Mitrovic when the Serb hired him. Yet during his time in America, Russell observed the widespread position-specific coaching in sports such as NFL and contrasted it to football where, traditionally, only goalkeepers do separate and specific practice. With the modern game so tactical, training at top clubs often focuses on shape and team play, leaving goalscorers short of practice at the solo activity of finishing. “At a lot of clubs it’s usually just the same sort of drills,” says Gray. “They’re a benefit to certain players but I wanted something different and when he came along it was a no-brainer.”

The future for strikers? “A hundred per cent,” Gray says. “It will slowly start to come in now. It is all about attention to detail and focusing on how best to play your position. That Allan is working with England shows how well he is doing"

Forward planning: Russell is coaching Englandâs strikers

 

Edited by 3 moffat buds
missed a photie !
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As a player I think he spent too much time believing he was destined to be something in the modelling world. Didn't really put full effort into his football.
But fair play to him. He had found his calling. Shows how slow and backward the Scottish authorities are that they didn't recognise the potential and keep him in his homeland.

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37 minutes ago, spankin_panda said:

. See fergie as an example.....

See people say this a lot , it's nonsense. Fergie was a machine , a win at all costs player , a great striker , with over 200 goals in a 350 odd games !

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12 minutes ago, billyg said:

See people say this a lot , it's nonsense. Fergie was a machine , a win at all costs player , a great striker , with over 200 goals in a 350 odd games !

Think he only won 7 caps for Scotland so they must have been other better strikers than him about at the time.

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49 minutes ago, renfrew said:

Think he only won 7 caps for Scotland so they must have been other better strikers than him about at the time.

I believe that Denis Law guy was a bit of a player. :P

In the 60s/70s/80s caps were much harder to rack up, not only because there were more good players, but also because we played far fewer games. Joe Jordan for example was Scotland's main striker for a period of 9 years and only managed to get 52 caps. In this modern day he'd probably have got 100. Andy Gray and Charlie Nicholas only managed about 20 caps each.

Anyway...I digress...

Edited by TPAFKA Jersey 2
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12 minutes ago, Yflab said:

Famous five in Copenhagen was Bremner, Young, McCluskey, Harper, and a Graham. Fergie was never in that squad.

I think Jimmy Bone was in that Squad.

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22 hours ago, billyg said:

See people say this a lot , it's nonsense. Fergie was a machine , a win at all costs player , a great striker , with over 200 goals in a 350 odd games !

Fair enough re: fergie, however, the point and I am making is that great players don't necessarily make great coaches/managers and vice versa. 

Morinhio (controversial, love or loathe hi) has achieved great things as a manager but with a fairly unflattering playing career, and I am sure there are many other examples. And the same will apply to coaching etc, some people have a natural technical ability and can't articulate or teach it, others have less ability and but have the knowledge on how to coach others to improve their game......

Anyway, guys doing well for himself and seems fairly well thought of, good on him.

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  • 2 years later...
26 minutes ago, Mainstand Sweary Mob said:

He must have been employed to tell them what NOT to do or for them to do the opposite to what he does as he wasn't that good a striker... Certainly wasn't for us anyway. emoji23.png

That old chestnut ? 
 

Being an average player doesn’t mean you can’t become a good coach . Klopp , Wenger & Morinho hardly set the heather on fire as players .

Conversely ,Being a good striker / player does not mean you’re cut out to be the next big thing in coaching or management …… Alan Shearer or  John Barnes anyone ? 
 

England were happy to let Allan work with Kane , Rashford etc, I wish we ( Scotland ) had the foresight to employ him in that role .

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5 hours ago, Slash said:

 

Really feel for Kenny missing out given that he scored the deciding penalty against Serbia. I hope Steve Clarke at least offers him the chance to come along with the squad for the tournament.

Ally McLeod made that mistake with Sandy Jardine and Big Gordon McQ for Argentina: faithful (but at the time, injured) servants.

It's a lovely, cuddly thought but impractical...  IMHO

 

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