This mornings ‘watching brief’ is all about Ryland Morgans, a name few will have heard of so maybe we should start at Swansea City ? And why not ? Ryland has been everywhere from the Ivory Coast to Northampton, from Liverpool to Everton and should we forget from Crystal Palace to CSKA Moscow ! Not necessarily in that order, but he does like a challenge. He was at the Euros 2016 with Wales in France and without taking a breath there’s a lot more.

When at the Swans Morgans worked alongside the recently mentioned and well documented Chris Davies - back thirteen years ago now when the premier league became a dream for Swansea City fans everywhere. Upon Brendan leaving Swansea he took Chris Davies with him, and then followed Ryland Morgans after a short stint with Michael Laudrup. Many fans don’t recall coaches and staff members beyond the manager and their assistant in the main. However, as we have seen recently people are still asking who two of the four backroom staff Russell Martin is taking to Southampton with him. It isn’t ignorance so much as bliss.

So, let’s have a good look at Dr Ryland Morgans, fitness, conditioning, sports science and development are his watchwords, and it was at Fulham then Swansea where he pursued what could be called the antithesis of what was, or still is at times the norm. Ryland’s role at Liverpool was working closely with the manager ( Rodgers ) and as he said at the time. “We work on strength and power development in the gym, recovery modalities, and nutritional strategies to underpin everything. I work very closely with Brendan, discussing the fitness of the players, conditioning aspects of training, preparation aspects of training. We also look at where players are physically, in relation to upcoming matches”

Morgans is big in to personal development, an area some Swansea fans found difficult to understand when Russell Martin attempted to explain why he did certain things and for what reason in his press conferences last season. If a player can’t develop with a personal brief, that is to take responsibility and forward their own progress what chance anyone else ? Morgans explains his own journey well and encapsulates the desire he had to get to where he is today. “ I gained as many academic, coaching, strength and conditioning and coach education qualifications as possible - and then practically applied them in semi-professional football, national youth squads and coach education programmes. I was then fortunate to be offered a role at a League Two club, after presenting on the UEFA A license. I then progressed through League One, Championship and then the English Premier League”

Morgans should be proud of his achievements but rarely spends a huge amount of time at any one club, now at forty six it could well be a more stable and permanent home is what he desires ? It’s just a guess of course, but with the current situation at Swansea in flux maybe now is the time for a return to his home town club ? Ryland has amassed a wealth of knowledge that would serve him well as a number two at any club, and he has that experience already as assistant to Ibrahim Kamara with the Ivory Coast national team. To actually document Ryland’s career to date would take some while but we can cherry pick a few Instances. Whilst at the Ivory Coast he combined that role with a technical coach at Luton Town. ‘Oddly enough’ when Paul Watson was at the club, a man now on the brink of starting a new role at Swansea City.

The coincidences of course don’t end there, it was Graeme Jones another ex Swansea City coach and assistant to Roberto Martinez who brought Ryland to Luton in 2019. Jones said when linking up with Ryland. “Ryland has a fantastic CV — an elite CV — working at the top level of the game. He was with Brendan Rogers at Swansea and Liverpool as head of performance, then he was with Sam Allardyce at Crystal Palace and Everton as performance director, but with technical and tactical responsibilities. I felt that we needed to increase the coaching staff if we were going to affect units and affect individuals. Ryland is someone whose career I’ve followed, certainly from competing with the teams that he’s been involved in. He’s probably best known for his period as head of performance with the Wales national team that got to the Euro 2016 semi-final, so we are talking about a guy with a really, really strong CV, someone who is used to elite level coaching”

Those comments from Jones help us a lot to understand the CV of Ryland and what he has achieved. He has a lot of respect in the first class game. As mentioned he worked alongside Chris Coleman when Wales made the semi finals of the Euros in 2016, and was with Gary Speed before that. Gareth Bale sings Ryland’s praises as an elite coach and Ryland worked very closely with him and Joe Allen during 2016. Talking of that time Ryland acknowledges. “Gareth Bale’s attributes are there for all to see. He will cover more high-intensity work. For Joe Allen, covering more total distance and being around the ball and able to create options for 95 minutes is important. Always being on the move is vitally important for him as a deep-lying midfielder and for us as a team. It doesn’t warrant him sprinting the length of the pitch, so his physical profile will be different to Gareth’s, who produces more high-intensity sprints”

The education
Another of Ryland’s strengths is what is referred to as periodisation, a concept introduced in to sports by a Portuguese trainer Vitor Frade at Porto University. Put simply - Everything starts with game actions, these are the four moments of the game: defensive organisation, offensive organisation, the transition from defence to attack, and the transition from attack to defence These are the principles introduced by Frade and then worked on by Alberto Mendez-Villanueva currently at Aspire Training in Qatar - and it attracted a whole new world view towards conditioning and fitness. Tactical Periodisation doesn’t separate between fitness coaches and technical coaches it combines their strengths. In the rugby arena Eddie Jones is a convert, talking of the development of periodisation he said. “We went to Argentina and had twenty eight senior players unavailable and five weeks to prepare them to the last game. In the first week of training we got something like 14% of accelerations at training, which is far too low. By the last week we got 40% and it was all by doing it through the game, none of it through acceleration work."

Looking back to those Euros in 2016 Ryland is convinced Wales could have won the tournament. "The mantra was together stronger. As staff and players led by Chris, everyone bought into that and everyone was on the same page," Ryland explains. "There were no issues, no problems - everyone wanted the same thing - and I would still say that if we hadn't lost Aaron and Ben (Davies) to suspension, we would have won the whole thing. As a Welshman, to do what we did meant a lot - but I do look back and think, 'if only'."

Too true.

Working at elite level as Ryland has done and staying there is key to being a well respected coach. He has had many titles and many clubs, but as we said maybe now is the time to settle down, and concentrate on a brand new challenge in an environment he knows, maybe closer to home ?

Keith Haynes is the owner and editor of Swansea Independent.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

ReslovenSwan1 added 13:12 - Jun 10 It seems to me Russel Martin did not have these conditioning aspects sorted. RM would use a lot of excuses. 3 games in a week was too much for his team it seems and he would mention "we spent 13 hours in coach last week " after another low energy performance. The young men needed a pre seaosn to ply like his team wanted. Of course the first season there was no preseason. Cooper would blame the pitch the wind or even the opposition tactics.

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