As a full-back you need to dedicate hours to developing and improving your skills in a 1 v 1 situation.
One of your main responsibilities on game day is to stop the opposition’s winger – often the quickest, most skilful player in their armoury. If you don’t halt his charge he’s going to get the ball in the box or fire off a shot.
Having the defensive skills to cope with this situation are essential and for Arsenal’s Carl Jenkinson there’s no better way of preparing for this than going head-to-head with his team-mates in training.
“Simulating a 1 v 1 in training works on all aspects of defending. All the players at Arsenal do it. It’s live, it’s real, it’s simple,” he told FFT.
“We have an exercise where it’s literally about you and him – he’s trying to get past you and you’re trying to defend. It’s isolated so it can be very tough on your legs and hard work because there’s a lot of jockeying involved.”
To find out what exercise Jenkinson and his Arsenal team-mates find so punishing tune in to this video.
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