Neil Banfield: ‘Coaching is about making good people, not players’

“There’s nothing like the feeling of getting up every day and going to work with elite footballers,” Neil Banfield says as he leads Queens Park Rangers’ first-team squad through their warm-up on a bitterly cold Monday morning. For the next two hours, the genial veteran coach oversees a series of drills, barking non-stop encouragement and regularly bursting into laughter. “You don’t stop loving this game,” he continues, shortly after wrapping up the session. “When I leave here this afternoon, I’ll still be watching games, studying tactics and looking for developments. And if I’m not doing that, I’ll be in Buckhurst Hill watching my son play.”

Banfield has been one of the unsung heroes behind QPR’s remarkable form this season, with the west London club currently fourth in the Championship and on a run of seven games unbeaten. A former England schoolboy international, he spent 21 years at Arsenal after his career was cut short by injury, starting out as a youth coach under Liam Brady, moulding the likes of Ashley Cole, Jack Wilshere, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, before later becoming a key member of Arsene Wenger’s first-team staff. Banfield spent every day attempting to facilitate the Frenchman’s vision and was part of the collateral when that reality finally came crumbling down in 2018.

“Everyone has their shelf life but it’s how you handle it,” he says of the regime change that cast him out too. “You look at Ferguson, Busby, Shankly, they’re historic managers. I don’t understand how someone like Arsene, who brought so much success to the club and changed the outlook of football in general, isn’t still involved with Arsenal in some capacity.”

Banfield admits it was “very, very tough to walk away” from a club that formed so much of his life and identity. “My son was born in the same year I joined,” he says. “He grew up through Arsenal.” But a year out of the game did nothing to quell his passion for coaching. Mark Warburton had been working in the academy at Watford when the pair first met almost a decade ago and they stayed in touch, catching up at coaching courses and seminars. When Warburton was appointed by QPR in 2019, Banfield was the first addition to his backroom team.

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“The fundamentals of Arsene and Mark’s philosophies are actually very similar. All the training under Arsene was built around the technical side of the game, keeping your shape, and moving the ball quickly,” he says, having spent the majority of the morning working with QPR’s centre-backs on playing out of the back and breaking the opponent’s press. “That hasn’t changed too much over the years, it’s more just the pace of it, and Mark’s outlook is the same. I’ve been very fortunate to work at two clubs that are very focused on developing young players.”

Despite losing the likes of Eberechi Eze and Bright Osayi-Samuel over the past two seasons, Banfield and Warburton are united in the belief that this is the best squad they’ve had during their tenure. “What we’ve got here are really good characters,” he says. “There’s a balance between youth players and senior players and there’s a camaraderie between them, they work for each other, they’re hungry, they want to achieve. There’s no way you can coach things like that. Yes, it’s about technique, the shape, but it’s also about the bond as a team.”

Banfield’s own experience has been vital to that, too. He has known Chris Willock since he was 12 years old in the Arsenal academy, and fought for him on several occasions when there were doubts over his potential. That underlying trust helped to beat off the competition to bring the winger from Benfica to QPR and he’s since flourished into one of the club’s standout players, with seven goals and ten assists already this season. “You get personal gratification seeing how he’s doing,” Banfield says. “We did have disagreements about Chrissy [at Arsenal]. ‘Is he going to be a player?’ It’s that feeling of yes, you were right. I think he’d be the first one to admit he still has to develop, but he’s going in the right direction and he’s got a manager who’s giving him that chance.”

Banfield’s tough love approach has left a lasting impression on dozens of players. Just before Christmas, a parcel arrived through the post out of the blue. Inside was a signed Champions League shirt and a thank you note from Serge Gnabry, who Banfield had helped to adapt when he first arrived in England as a 16-year-old. “It took my breath away to have someone like that recognise what you did for them,” he says. “It’s got pride of place in my house.”

There is a common consensus that coaches like Banfield, who pride themselves on being “very straight and honest” and “never sugarcoating it”, are slowly being phased out of the English game. He counters that the attention to detail of British coaches can often be disguised by stereotypes or gruff exteriors, and insists it’s possible to be “forward-thinking” while using a firm hand to ensure players squeeze everything out of their potential.

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“What is tough? How can you describe tough?” he says. “Tough is demanding from your players as much as they can handle. Some might never make it to the first-team at Arsenal or QPR, but they still could somewhere else, so you stretch them for as much as they can take.”

In that regard, he points to some of the players who’ve become the biggest source of personal pride. “It’s people like Fabrice Muamba, Sebastian Larsson, Steve Sidwell, Ben Chorley, Luke Ayling,” he says. “The ones who you’ve helped give a fantastic and life-changing career. I would make it hard on them but there was always a reason behind it. Would I have said Luke would become a Premier League player [at Leeds]? Probably not, but I knew he could be good because he had such a fantastic attitude and that’s the thread that binds all of those players. It was never just about making them good footballers, it was about giving them good morals and watching them grow as human beings.”

A player who Banfield says always epitomised those values at Arsenal was Mikel Arteta. “He was always interested in the tactical side and we’d speak now and again about where he wanted to go as a coach,” he says. “He had a vision and he knows what he wants. It takes time to put your own imprint on someone else’s team and he’s doing that now.” And what of the hardline approach that has put paid to Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang? “I have to say, when I was there, there was never a problem with Mesut whatsoever, on or off the pitch. He was an outstanding professional, so I don’t know where that came from. But Mikel was the captain, he always set the rules [as a player] and strong managers have to have that, without a doubt. We have non-negotiables here too.”

Of course, it’s not all tried by the fire. Banfield is warm company, intensely passionate but with more bark than bite and a penchant for self-deprecating humour.

“If it’s not straight to me, I ain’t f*** moving,” he shouted earlier after pacing back towards the boundary fence of QPR’s training ground, with centre-back Dominic Ball staying behind to work on his crossfield passing.

“It’s a big enough target to hit,” Warburton chimed back before all three burst into laughter.

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Sometimes, that means Banfield often overlooks what he’s achieved during his career too. His time at Arsenal feels like a different era now. Most of the players he helped nurture have moved on and this latest crop of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, following on from Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Eddie Nketiah, are some of the last he came to know. “Funnily enough, just the other day, my son said look at what you did there: winning leagues, the cups, all the players that went on to have top careers. You don’t stop to think about that when you’re still in it. You’re always thinking about the next one. But I do think winning promotion with QPR, that would really rank right up there as one of the biggest achievements.”

Throughout the morning, Banfield has kept returning to one phrase. “I just feel very fortunate,” he says. “Every step of my career, I’ve worked with really great people. Sometimes people ask me if I would have wanted to be a manager but I never had that inkling because I always enjoyed what I was doing so much.

“I just love football and I’m grateful to Mark for giving me another opportunity because after leaving Arsenal, it’s true what they say, the phone does stop. This isn’t a job that starts at half-past seven and finishes at three for me. I can sit here, hand on heart, and say that I’ve tried to do the best for every player I’ve ever worked with. That never goes away.”