Folarin Balogun’s personal coach reveals the remarkable trips he undertook while at Arsenal
Folarin Balogun was rarely afforded the chance to work on his specific faults in Arsenal training and took frequent trips on the Eurostar to do one-on-one work with a specialist coach.
Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Saul Isaksson-Hurst, a long-standing former Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal coach of 18 years and who now runs his own business coaching Premier League stars, claimed players like Balogun get little “individual time” during busy training sessions.
The striker, 22, earned a reported £35million move to Monaco last summer after a 22-goal loan spell at Reims the previous season.
However, he made just 10 senior appearances for the Gunners after joining their academy in 2008 and was never given a real opportunity to impress the Emirates faithful.
Folarin Balogun had big problem with Arsenal training
After working individually with Isaksson-Hurst in 2022, Balogun went on to have his exceptional spell with Reims, which earned him his mega-money move.
Isaksson-Hurst claimed that players often struggle to improve on their individual issues in club training sessions, which motivates them to seek further coaching elsewhere.
“Flo came to me just after his loan at Middlesbrough to work individually,” he told the Inside Track podcast.
“I wasn’t working with the club at the time, but we did some intense work on the pitch and off the pitch with analytics.
“That went really well and the season after we worked together he went to Reims and became one of the top goal scorers in the league.
“Now he’s onto Monaco where he’s doing really well.
“His situation [at Arsenal] was similar with Noni Madueke [at Tottenham] and Reiss Nelson, who I worked with as well at Arsenal.
“These are top pros but the irony is, even within those world-class environments, they don’t get so much of the individual time to work on what they’re really good at.
“I suppose that’s why they come and see me to really reinforce and focus on that.
“Flo would be doing a finishing session at Arsenal, but there would be six or seven other players there and it may not be specifically on what he needs to work on.
“Flo used to come back on the Eurostar on his days off to do sessions and then go back.
“He’s another really committed young pro.”
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