Notts County defender Ben Turner has opened up on Neal Ardley’s meticulous approach to games and says the level of research can rival Championship and League One clubs.
Magpies boss Ardley is a big advocate of video analysis not just to examine his own team's strengths and weaknesses but those of the opposition.
It is obviously helping Notts on the pitch with the club currently in the second round of the FA Cup, eighth in the National League table and their form has seen them lose just three of their last 19 games.
Turner, who knows Ardley from their time at Cardiff together, says the attention to detail is paying massive dividends and demonstrates how Notts will not cut corners in their bid for success.
“He doesn’t just get 11 players in training and go ‘there you are, have a game of football and hope for the best,” said Turner.
“He’s meticulous. We do video meetings on the opposition and look where the space will be.
“Do we play wide, or do we play through the middle? And we are very much aware of these things before we go out onto the pitch.
“It really helps. I’ve been under managers who do the analysis, and others who don’t.
“It might take you 20 or 30 minutes in a game to work out where the space is on the pitch, because you haven’t done enough analysis.
“We do a lot of work on it. We even looked at Belper knowing they did certain things at set-pieces.
“I am surprised we even had footage of Belper. We did a full on half-hour meeting on how we could hurt Belper and how they could hurt us if we weren’t careful.
“The club here is at the level its at, but it’s not ran differently to any Championship or League One club.
“The video work takes a lot of research and the staff here, the manager and Coxy are very keen not to cut any corners when we are preparing for games.”
