Build your team around the regulars

Team selection should be based around the players who are there the most.

There’s no point building tactical plans around your “best” players if they haven’t shown consistency. Doing so sends the wrong message about what’s valued in the team, and it creates a gap between your expectations and reality.

On the flip side, grounding your ideas in the players who are regularly present reinforces the principle of rewarding commitment and builds something real, not theoretical.

I’ve made the mistake of being too idealistic in the past. One season, I planned to play a back three instead of a back four, based on a really talented player who had often been unavailable due to work. He assured me he’d be more present, and he wasn’t. I was left without the right personnel to make the system work.

Eventually, I removed him from the core structure of the team. When he did become available later in the season, I played him in a more attacking role. He loved it, by the way.