Johnny Heitinga shares something specific he’s doing in training to help West Ham improve

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West Ham United coach Johnny Heitinga is very much taking a hands on approach during training sessions it seems.

Johnny Heitinga joined the West Ham United first-team coaching staff from Ajax back in early September.

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It was very much out of the blue last month when the 39-year-old was announced as one of three new additions to the West Ham coaching staff, alongside Mark Robson and Henry Newman.

Hammers boss David Moyes now has a top level coaching team supporting him and the future looks very bright for the club.

But how can West Ham continue to improve and grow as a team?

Johnny Heitinga shares something specific he’s doing in training to help West Ham improve

The former Everton man, who played under Moyes during his time at Goodison Park, has been speaking to WHUFC.com about how he’s settled into life at the London Stadium.

And Heitinga outlined what he thinks he can bring to the current setup at West Ham:

“In this team, we have a lot of good football players and this allows us to look at different things; what do we want to see? How do we build the attack? How are we pressing? Every game brings a different system that you come up against, so the players need to understand what we want them to do. All of these things form part of our conversations in our coaching room. It’s important that football players have fun as well. You need to work hard but, during the session, there can be different kinds of exercises and drills. But the most important thing of all is that everything you’re doing is about winning. For me, it is very important to train how you play and play how you train. Everything in football is about winning so all the drills must have a competitive element. You can do it with all the drills. It brings the competitiveness out of the players. Then, on match day, you have to almost start all over again. Each game, you have to prove yourself again. It’s that competitive mentality, and this is the mentality I love.”

I absolutely love that from Heitinga – the Dutchman clearly has an elite level mentality and he will undoubtedly play a key role in our progress over the next few years.

He was very highly rated in Holland as a potentially really bright up and coming young manager. So his addition to the Hammers coaching staff is definitely a really exciting one.

After the exits of Paul Nevin and Mark Warburton this summer just gone, and Stuart Pearce and Alan Irvine over the past couple of years, getting some young, innovative and fresh-thinking coaches on board was vital for Moyes, and he has done exactly that.

Johnny Heitinga will end up being a brilliant addition for West Ham, I have no doubts about that.

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