I THINK about the week’s training sessions over every weekend and decide what the training programme is going to be on every day.

I consult Andy Fensome, my assistant, and then sit down with the staff, Tom Whitaker, the sports scientist, Jamie Pitman, the sports therapist and goalkeeping coach Russell Hoult as well as Andy.

When I’ve laid out the plan, Russell then knows how much work he can do with the goalkeepers before they come into my training sessions.

That may be 30 minutes in which he has to do technical stuff with them or it may be the whole session depending on what we are working on.

There is also a fitness element to every training session so Tom will take care of that.

We do the warm-up and then he goes into the fitness element. That may be, say, a 10-minute agility circuit or a 20-minute sprint circuit and then Andy and I will take the technical practice.

Sometimes, Andy will take it and I will step in if I see anything that’s not right. But most of the time I will lead that session.

The sessions we use depend, for example, on whether we have a midweek game.

On Monday, players are very sore – it’s called DOMS, delayed onset of muscle soreness.

It’s usually the second day after they have played – the Monday – that it will become noticeable but when there is a midweek game, that’s also a preparation day for the Tuesday match.

So on a Monday before a Tuesday game, it is always a very low intensity, light session to get a bit of the lactic acid out of their legs but getting them to do enough so they are not feeling lethargic for the Tuesday game.

If there is no midweek fixture, then we would work on Monday morning and afternoon, Tuesday morning and, sometimes, Tuesday afternoon.

They usually have a day off on a Wednesday and then come in for Thursday and Friday – there may be some sort of personal improvements for a Thursday afternoon, fitness- or technical-wise.

During the course of the season, the technical programme will vary – if you are losing goals, you concentrate more on the defensive side of things; if you need to increase the amount of chances you are creating, you have to gear you programme up that way.

If everything is rosy, which it never is at any football club, there are still always things that you can work on.

They can also do improvement work on an individual basis. I am a big believer that while we do a lot of work with the players – as a team and as units and individuals – they have to take responsibility for themselves.

If we do an hour and 45-minute session, there will a five-minute window at the back of each training session where I ask the players to work on their own individual plans.

Some will go away and do a little bit of finishing, some will do crossing, some heading, others passing and so they will lead their own sessions.

They have to take some ownership of their own development.