Actually, skills training is a vital part of any athletes training regime.
You practice your skills not just to improve them but to maintain. The old saying, "what you don't use, you lose" sums it up nicely.
Elite athletes practice over and over every part of whatever skills they use. Runners practice starts over and over and over. They practice their strides and the way they run. Everything is practiced.
Swimmers practice starts, they practice getting their strokes perfect, they practice kicking, they practice their turns over and over and over. No part of any swimming regime goes unpracticed.
It's the same for footballers. When you disregard skills because you focus solely on implementing structure based game plans, players gradually lose the skills needed to make that system work. The current focus on individual skills isn't so much going to 'improve' the players, it's more a case of 'restoring' the players skills.
I'm anticipating a substantial improvement over the first half of the year with further gradual improvement over the following 18 months. Add that to a less rigid and more flexible team plan and there should be a lot of improvement in the team over the next 2 seasons.
