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Academic Research Profiles
Latest Peer-Reviewed Publication
Game Models in Football Coaching: An Ecological Dynamics Perspective
Published in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport (2026)
This peer-reviewed publication explores how Game Models in football may be reconceptualised through an ecological dynamics perspective.
Traditional Game Models are often presented as rigid structures built around predefined patterns and idealised solutions. This paper challenges that position by proposing Game Models as adaptive, principle-based frameworks that support player perception, decision-making, and behavioural adaptability within the evolving context of the game.
Rather than prescribing fixed movements and rehearsed solutions, this perspective positions tactical principles as attentional anchors that help guide players toward functional and adaptable actions in dynamic performance environments.
The paper explores:
Ecological dynamics and affordance-based perspectives on Game Models
How tactical principles can guide adaptable player behaviours
Representative practice design and perception-action coupling
The relationship between coaching language, feedback, and decision-making
Why adaptability may be more important than rehearsing fixed patterns
The publication connects directly to my wider PhD research investigating how coaches can use verbal augmented feedback and practice design to guide player search, learning, and performance adaptation.
A Game Model should not simply tell players what to do. It should help players learn how to perceive, adapt, and solve problems within the continuous flow of football.
Jones, G., Kubayi, A., Stone, J. A., & Davids, K. (2026). Game models in football coaching: an ecological dynamics perspective. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 1–18.
Pioneering New Frontiers in Coaching Verbal Feedback
Investigating coaching interactions and how coaches can use verbal feedback to guide athletes' search for performance solution
Investigate how coaches can use verbal augmented information (Feedback) more effectively to guide the attentional search of athletes in football, to explore and create their own adaptable performance solutions.
Looking to collaborate on research surrounding coaches use of feedback, practice design or another topic?
Sharing Best Practice on Talent Development & Methodology
Reimagining Talent Development in Professional Football
Gérard has presented his research at the Talent Identification and Development Environments in Sport (TIDES) Inaugural Conference 2026, hosted by Leeds Beckett University during an Oral Session on Practice Design, Learning Environments & Performance Support. His presentation on Reimagining Talent Development in Professional Football: Department of Methodology as a Transdisciplinary Inntegrator shared insights from a case study involving a professional MLS Club and how to enhance methodological alignment across all departments from first-team to youth academy. This presentation was shared to over 100 delegates, consisting of world-leading experts and an international community of researchers and practitioners across a range of sports, including representatives from The Premier League, Premier League EPPP Academies, FIFA and other organisations
The conference provided an opportunity to engage in thought-provoking discussions, and explore best practices in talent identification and development with a focus on what insights will shape the future of talent development in sport
Learn About My Research
What is the PhD Research About?
The Aim of the Study: Investigate how coaches can use verbal augmented information (Feedback) more effectively to guide the attentional search of athletes in football, to explore and create their own adaptable performance solutions.
Since 2020, my PhD research focuses on a pioneering "Transitional Learning Model" (TLM) for football coaches to enhance the efficacy & impact of their use of verbal augmented feedback. Integrating ecological dynamics and a constraints-led approach, TLM guides players' attentional search, refining decision-making & skill adaptation.
What is the Problem with Current Feedback Methods?
Verbal feedback is a dominant coaching behaviour displayed by coaches, and yet used ineffectively, often failing to support long-term learning and performance. Some of challenges with verbal feedback provision is that it may not always translate into recipient comprehension, with some athletes found to recall around 50% of summarized feedback and less than 6% of all feedback a week later. Football (soccer) coaching like most sports is guided by a reproductive, coach-led approach that subjects athletes to receiving high frequencies of prescriptive information in the form of error correction, in reference to an optimal movement template shaped by the coach to address dynamic and random game problems. Overuse of poor verbal feedback has led to significant athlete dependence, where excessive reliance on prescriptive feedback discourages athletes from exploring and solving problems independently, limiting their autonomy during performance. Additionally, misaligned learning occurs when feedback focuses on idealized movement patterns rather than situational adaptability, creating a disconnect between training and the unpredictable nature of dynamic sports like football.
How Well do we Check for Understanding?
Coaches share a lot of their information verbally but how much of this information provided to athletes encourages autonomy support? self-regulation and adaptability? How well do we check for understanding?
Newell - Learning as Searching
Important position is agreeing that "LEARNING as SEARCH" and "Practice is Search" meaning that Perception-Action is coupled. We learn through our constant interaction with the environment and we are in environments where we have to search for information to optimally identify key information sources, in order to use that information to discover and implement our own adaptable and unique movement solution.
Newell - Transitional Information
Existing feedback approaches fails to consider the complex, dynamic and nuanced nature of sports, such as football. Football requires constant decision making and problem solving, as athletes must interact with and search for information from an environment that is unpredictable and forever changing. This is where an alternative approach to providing augmented information known as ‘transitional' can help coaches, as transitional information can be shared concurrently (during action) or terminally (after action), by using feedback to channel the athletes search for information, which they can use to discover their own adaptable performance solutions. This conceptualization views ‘learning and practice design as search meaning, environments that promote the process of athlete’s actively exploring and seeking out information and solutions through inquiry, experimentation, and problem-solving, compared to relying solely on the coach’s idealistic solution to every problem.
What is the Goal for Feedback
What can be described as a contemporary non-linear approach to coaching, aligns with calls from Woods, Rudd, Robertson & Davids that re-position the role of the coach as that of a Learning Designer, an individual who designs decision-rich environments that use feedback as an informational constraint, to guide an athlete’s attentional search for movement solutions. By using Newell’s views within a constraints-led approach which also draws from Gibson’s perception-action coupling in that perception and action are coupled, my PhD Research proposes a Transitional Learning Model (TLM) to prevent athletes (soccer players) from becoming dependent on augmented information, instead helping them develop the relevant skills and capacities to explore practice and game environments for their own functional and adaptable solutions.
Study 1 "How Coaches Use Feedback in Everyday Environments"
Study 1 - How coaches use feedback in their everyday coaching environments through semi-structured Interviews
Interviewed 22 coaches across Grassroots, Development & Elite environments
Across Two Parts
Select group of individuals selected for Part Two based on their responses to the first-part of the study, to take part in a Listening Rooms approach
Select group of 10 coaches who unpacked key findings further across 6 Themes: Feedback Approach, No Feedback Model, Social & Cultural Influences, Player Centered Focus, Use of Experience & Knowledge and Feedback Periodization Strategy
Programme of Research across Three Studies
No clear feedback model or framework with coaches not planning with intentionality what their feedback strategy in training or matchday environments will and should look like. Coaches heavily influenced by unknown socio-cultural constraints as well as considerations linked to Periodization of workload. Consistent Philosophical Discord between methods used, with coaches making contradicting statements surrounding their use of feedback. Universal agreement for a need to have a model or framework that guides coaches use of feedback that taps into the perception of the athlete to solve game problems through the discovery of their own solutions
Talent Development in Professional Football
Background: Professional football organisations have become increasingly complex,
with expanding transdisciplinary structures intended to support player development
and performance. However, this structural growth has not consistently resulted in
organisational coherence, with many clubs continuing to operate through fragmented
systems characterised by siloed departments, inconsistent practices, and limited
integration across coaching, support, and leadership domains (Relvas et al., 2010).
While multidisciplinary approaches are common, transdisciplinarity, defined as the
integration of knowledge and practice across domains within a shared framework, has
been proposed as a more effective model for aligning practice (Hydes et al., 2026; Otte
et al., 2022).
Aim: This study investigated how a Department of Methodology (DoM) could be
developed and implemented within a professional football organisation to enhance
methodological alignment across coaching practice, transdisciplinary collaboration,
and player development pathways.
Methods: Guided by an interpretivist paradigm and relativist ontology, a qualitative
single-case study was conducted within a professional football organisation
(pseudonym: “North FC”). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews (n =
16), participant observations, field notes, and document analysis. Data were analysed
using reflexive thematic analysis to explore how methodology was understood and
enacted across coaching, leadership, and performance domains (Braun & Clarke,
2019).
Findings: Findings revealed substantial conceptual, structural, and pedagogical
misalignment across the organisation. Participants described a lack of shared
understanding of methodology, fragmented curriculum and planning processes,
inconsistent feedback practices, and limited integration across transdisciplinary teams.
Although staff expressed strong commitment to player development, the absence of a
coherent epistemological foundation and shared methodological framework
constrained the consistency of player experiences. These findings reflect broader
organisational challenges in aligning structures, practices, and shared meaning across
complex performance environments.
Abstract featured at the Inaugural Talent Identification & Development Environments in Sport (TIDES) Conference 2026 hosted by Leeds Beckett University, with the abstract published in a Special Issue of the Journal of Expertise
The Problems Identified
