'They are ambitious and so am I' - Strength and conditioning coach Tom Joyce on taking Lamptey, Elanga and Kean to the top

Tom Joyce has skills that are desired by elite-level players seeking to gain an edge over their rivals.

As one of the most respected strength and conditioning coaches around, he has become a talent in his own right in the football industry.

Cristiano Ronaldo's fitness regimen has become legendary and now footballers are more aware than ever that doing 'extras' away from their club could mean the difference between top-level success and failure.

Ronaldo was an innovator in his first spell at Manchester United, hiring a team of staff to propel his career forward, and doing extra physical and recovery work away from Old Trafford and subsequently at Real Madrid and Juventus. He has gone on to break records, play at the highest level into his late-30s and he continues to boast a spectacular physique.

Academy players from across England are aiming to emulate that success and Joyce's mantra of urging players to be 'Built Not Born' is really making waves. His phone is always pinging with players asking for advice or more coaching time.

His client list now includes Man United's Anthony Elanga, Borussia Dortmund's Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Southampton's Tino Livramento, Juventus' Moise Kean, Everton's Demarai Gray and Chelsea's Harvey Vale and Lauren James among many others. He finds himself so busy that he is anxious about satisfying everybody’s demands.

"When a kid comes into my room, I test them and I get extra data in from the clubs to compare it with what we ultimately get," Joyce tells GOAL.

"I compare what I do with footballers to athletes in other sports. I don’t want to make a footballer a 100-metre sprinter but if they look at the way they sprint and take it on board, then they become more efficient.

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"I had an academy player at Reading recently who went on to win a national 200 metres race. Even beyond the sessions, the guys might get homework from me.

"The only problem with my job is that I often don’t get enough time. In pre-season, my diary goes mad and I am working with so many players. I had Tino Livramento, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Tariq Lamptey and Harvey Vale all contacting me among others.

"But with so many, you only get five or six sessions with them over two weeks. I wonder if I had two or three players full-time, twice a week over a year-long period about how crazy the improvements we could do. The physical improvements add to the confidence levels.

"These guys are great athletes, getting paid well and have a lot of followers but there’s always more to be had in football and that’s where I can come in. They are ultimately paying me to be a better athlete. The work could turn a £20,000-a-week salary into a £30,000-a-week or more.

"Ronaldo changed the game by showing the world that talent is one thing. He was always talented but he became the best athlete to get ridiculous results which changed the mindset of kids. You see videos of him busting his balls and now kids are doing the same. You would never have seen that 10 years ago.

"[Sergio] Ramos and [Virgil] van Dijk show the centre-backs what an athlete is. I think that’s the difference between the highest level and the rest of football now. A lot of what these top players have is athleticism."

Football is moving in only one direction with strength and conditioning extras but Joyce still believes that most of the world's best clubs are reacting too slowly. The reason his services are in demand is that there are so few coaches in the United Kingdom with his skills and experience.

Joyce believes that more strength and conditioning coaches should be employed by clubs and teams should even specialise by having dedicated physical coaches for different positions on the pitch.

Typically, even the biggest and best clubs will only have two or three people like him around the first team, working with 25 or more players. That, in Joyce's view, has to change or else footballers will find themselves lagging badly behind sports personalities in the NBA and NFL.

"In my opinion, strength and conditioning is one of the areas that’s furthest behind in football," he added. "If you look at a lot of the American sports, those guys are built differently.

"A reason a lot of those guys are built differently in the NBA, NFL and even in hockey is that the strength and conditioning programmes are five or six times more intense than they are here.

“It is just a shame to see football has the money, where someone like myself at Man United is on £30,000 tops a year, to look after someone like Pogba who is on £300,000 a week.

"It is the job of someone like me to keep him injury-free. There would only be one, two or three tops strength and conditioning coaches even at the biggest clubs.

"I think in a few years, that the industry will change massively. I think clubs should have 10 of these coaches and have different ones working on players in different positions.

"What a winger needs is not the same as a centre-back. I think this is where the industry needs to change in the next 10 years. It’s not just about making better players. It is about injury prevention."

Working on strength and conditioning is non-negotiable if you want to make it in a brutally competitive sport. Football at the highest level has got faster, while there are more games than ever for top players.

Shaping your body to handle the demands of the sport is what will allow you to both compete at the highest level and also avoid injury.

"Strength is the product of everything," he concluded. "Without strength, you don’t have power. Without power, you don’t have speed. Nothing is more important than strength to me.

"If you look at some of the fastest players in the world like Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Lamptey or Alphonso Davies, what do they have that the others don’t have? I bet they can all squat 160 kilograms, which turns into strength, and then power and speed.

"The stronger you are as an athlete, you get all-around benefits and you are less injury-prone. That strength work will protect your ligaments and joints. If you can’t do 10 press ups or pull ups, then you shouldn’t play at the highest level.

"I have had PL players who couldn’t do five pull ups before I met them. The clubs hadn’t told them how to do it because they don’t have time or coaches to give individual programmes. A lot of players get shoulder injuries because they haven’t worked on their upper bodies.”

Talents who have sought out Joyce have already demonstrated that they want to go further to maintain an edge. That ambition is matched by Joyce himself, who is determined to take himself – and every name on his client list – right to the very top.

"The players I work with are ambitious and so am I," he said. "I want to become known like Tim Grover, who worked with Michael Jordan throughout his whole career, and prove that I am one of the best in the world.”