A small gesture can make the biggest impact. Sam Johnston still remembers the day, when he was a young Manchester United coach, when the club’s first goalkeeper, Edwin van der Sar, walked in and dumped him the £ 20 needed to cover the club’s fine. “He told me never to do it again, he was a really good man who took care of everyone,” Johnston recalls. The West Bromwich Albion goalkeeper prepares to face his old team at The Hawthorns on Sunday afternoon – live on Sky Sports. The training ground incident reflects the work ethic and standards that were etched on it from his young age at United. Sunday February 14 1:00 PM STARTING 2:00 PM “We had to wear thumb braces so that we didn’t break our thumb. I forgot to put on my thumb and got hit at the end of my thumb during training,” Johnston explains. “I had to go with my tail between my legs to Eric Steele, the goalkeeper coach, and tell him my thumb was swollen. So that was good straight away.” This was the kind of place I grew up in. It wasn’t about football, it was about growth and respect. We were shaking hands with all the coaches, the school work was important, the disposition of the excavations was important. It all came before football. If you don’t have a regimen, don’t get into training until you get it right. It was a great place to grow up, I wouldn’t say strict, but you had to be respectful and disciplined. Johnston joined United’s academy in 2003, at the age of 10, and was an early mentor being the club’s current goalkeeping coach Rich Hartis, who worked with Johnston for the first seven years of the young goalkeeper’s time with the club. “He’s a friend and coach,” Johnston says. former. It was an essential part of my development. At that age, growing up in a club like United, he trained in all the essentials and had in mind what I had to do away from the training ground. It’s really crazy because at that age he always said he could see something in there. He approached my dad and said, “He’s got the size, and it’s still growing, we just need to have all the basics like footwork, handling and timing.” “So Rich was tremendous for me and when he left I was so upset, to be fair. When we went to play them at Old Trafford this season, we stood in the tunnel for about an hour after the game just talking. He knew what I had done in the matches I played, what were you.” He needs to improve and he’s still watching what I’m doing, which is good. ” Picture: Johnston came into the ranks of Old Trafford but failed to make an appearance once for Manchester United as young Johnston would spend countless evenings and weekends working on his abilities with his father, Glenn, who had a short career in the professional game with Preston North End in the early 1990s. “I started playing the Sunday League in about eight years,” Johnston continues. “I was a defender and we never had a proper goalkeeper. One day it was my turn to score and I enjoyed it, so I stayed in goal. I knew my dad had played and he said to me, If I were to keep the goal, I would help you and let us do it right, not lukewarm. “And I loved it, we’d go out in the park every night in the summer, in the park on the weekends, just train. It was a tremendous help.” People may not realize how important family is to players in helping them achieve what they need to make it happen, whether that be They miss things as a child or want to do more. I’m still away from the club now at 27 years old. Photo: Lessons Learned at Manchester United Lay the Foundations for Johnston’s Career Johnston took his first professional steps on loan. Trafford – at Oldham Athletic, Scunthorpe United, Walsall, Yeovil Town, Doncaster Rovers and Preston North End – before joining former United captain Steve Bruce In Aston Villa in 2017 in a seventh loan period. ”To a villa where I felt it was time to go, I took some loans and was promoted to Preston. When Jose Mourinho came, he let me go to a villa and that was great for me to get the next step. As soon as I got to Villa I knew I would not be returning to United. When Johnston moved to The Hawthorns on a permanent basis in July 2018, he took over the number one jersey from another former United goalkeeper, Ben Foster. After nearly making a mistake in his first season, when Albion lost in the tournament semi-finals to Aston Villa, Johnston achieved His ambition to reach the Premier League next season was a tough prelude to the first division for a team lacking experience at this level, but Johnston says the mental resilience of his team-mates cannot be questioned. “It’s hard to lose every week and you have to. You pick yourself up and return to the training ground on Mondays and Tuesdays and every week to come back again the following week, knowing that it won’t be easy again. The manager has this drive inside with his crew and this is up to the players, we have to fight every day and hopefully luck will change our way. “2:30 Free to Watch: Highlights from Tottenham’s victory over West Bromwich in the Premier League with 93 balls saved, Johnston is leading in the Premier League and keeping the graph this season, but goals flying against him regularly are alarming as well. So is this busyness useful?” Or bad for confidence? ”He adds,“ I love making saves and I hate scoring goals. It was really a mixed bag this year, which was to be expected. We are a newly promoted club and we haven’t brought a lot of people over the summer with Premier League experience, which is a good thing. Exactly than it was last year when we were at the top of the tournament, when you used to tackle and dominate the games every now and then. But that didn’t affect my confidence, so I like to tackle these big players in particular. ”With England appearing at below 16 and 17, 19 and 20, there’s another step Johnston hopes to take in the near future. “That’s a huge goal for me. You want to push these English goalkeepers into the team now and be with them and show them what I can do. It’s going to be huge for me and my family. Fingers have crossed it not too far. Watch the full interview with Sam Johnston on Saturday in Soccer this weekend.
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