Ian Holloway has brought in a new drill for his Swindon Town players that he believes will help create a winning mentality in the squad.
Alongside subjecting the players to his infamous run and whistle drills to build the fitness of his players, Holloway is looking to develop an improved mentality within the squad.
Something the 63-year-old questioned at the end of last season was the capability of his players to deal with the pressure of competing for promotion, believing that they did not respond well to adversity.
As part of an attempt to improve this, as well as create a greater focus on defending, Holloway has brought in a new drill this summer.
When playing small-sided games, the squad gets split into multiple teams, with two playing one another and the other resting on the side; however, instead of the games lasting a set amount of time, they instead use a ‘Golden Goal’ rule, where one goal means that the team which conceded gets swapped out.
Holloway said that he already believes that he is seeing the positive results of forcing the players to have a winning mentality at all times.
Read more
Swindon plan to step up moves for key targets after return from Alicante
Holloway targeting bringing in the 'right ingredients' Town lacked last year
Swindon's positional battles: which players are pushing to start this season?
He said: “They're encouraging each other in the slightly different setup we've got. We have a small-sided game, and if you let a goal in, you're off.
“Normally, they play for a certain number of minutes, but if you've let a goal in, you're off, and the other team's got to rush on and get there.
“It's all about winning, and that is starting to cause some friction, some arguments if they're not doing it, and it's changing the team that's losing into a team that can win.
“It's only simple, it's only old-fashioned in the way that I do it, but I think it'll work, and I think we'll be fine.
“They're actually telling each other and changing things. We're starting to build a togetherness.”
On top of building the desire to win, there is also going to be more onus on the defensive aspects of the game this season, after a leaky back line often caused Town problems last term.
Having let in 59 goals, more than anyone else who finished in the top half of League Two, Holloway wants his players to be “more competitive without the ball”, so on top of forming the right attitude to not want to lose, this drill also creates the will not to concede goals.
Holloway said that he had been pleased to see losing cause tension within the team, but especially how they had managed to work it out.
He added: “You are off after ten seconds if you let a goal in, and then you can argue about that as you are standing on the side, but you don’t deserve to stay on there if you let a goal in.
“It has worked, one team went 3-0 up and everybody who was losing had a row, but then they won, and they stayed on.”
