Shrug off defenders and finish
Barge back and beat the enforcers at their own game
Ah, the defender’s art: the subtle grab, the cheeky barge, the full-on shove when the ref isn’t looking. Despite how much some emotional modern forwards might like to protest otherwise, football is still a contact sport, and if you’re going to find yourself space to shoot, you’re sometimes going to need to literally fight for it.
This Zlatan-inspired drill from elite conditioning coach Jamie Reynolds is a good way of replicating match time rough and tumble for forwards: he invites you to line up three balls, then drive headlong into a rugby-style rucking shield, simulating the driving away of a marker, before taking a shot. The perfect toughening up tool.
Reynolds is the founder of Velocity Training Club. For more information visit velocitytrainingclub.co.uk and follow @jamie_velocity
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Nick Moore is a freelance journalist based on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. He wrote his first FourFourTwo feature in 2001 about Gerard Houllier's cup-treble-winning Liverpool side, and has continued to ink his witty words for the mag ever since. Nick has produced FFT's 'Ask A Silly Question' interview for 16 years, once getting Peter Crouch to confess that he dreams about being a dwarf.