400m record holder and triple Olympic Champion in 200m and 400m Michael Johnson has joined the Arsenal family as a fitness trainer. The official word is that he joined to work with the junior teams in the Arsenal system in a bid to make them better prepared physically for first team football if ever they make the cut at the Emirates.
According to Johnson, “ It’s about developing athletes. How to bring an athlete from seven or eight years old all the way to their full development as a seventeen or eighteen year old. Once you get into athletic development, you start to look at speed, strength, power, agility and suppleness and pick the ones that they are really interested in.”
Michael Johnson is also of the opinion that English players lack the speed to compete at par with those from other leagues as training in that area is not really ranked highly by most clubs. If all goes according to plan, he hopes to help in the development of more and more players with the athletic ability of Theo Walcott at his peak.
However, it may be that Arsene Wenger is also looking at quickening his current squad of players who aside from Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck lack genuine pace whether in attack or defence, a factor which may not matter so much in the Premier League but leaves any team thoroughly exposed in European Competitions.
Source: DSG
