Justin Cochrane: The Brentford coach’s path to England, via Spurs and Manchester United

When England’s new head coach, Thomas Tuchel, was assembling his backroom staff, he opted for familiarity.

Anthony Barry, Tuchel’s assistant, had previously followed him from Chelsea to Bayern Munich. Goalkeeping coach Henrique Hilario and analyst James Melbourne both became acquainted with the 51-year-old at Stamford Bridge. Performance coach Nicolas Mayer’s links to the German go even further back, first crossing paths at French side Paris Saint-Germain and then reuniting at Bayern.

During this international break, Tuchel’s first in charge since officially starting the role in January, a new face has been added into the mix — Justin Cochrane.

Cochrane has spent the past three seasons as Brentford’s assistant coach, closely working alongside Thomas Frank. The 43-year-old, who played for multiple clubs in the lower divisions of English football including Crewe Alexandra, Rotherham United and Yeovil Town, will combine his duties at Brentford with a spot on Tuchel’s staff.

This is what he will offer Tuchel and England as they aim their sights on winning the 2026 World Cup.

Cochrane’s coaching career started before he made his first-team debut. He was 17 and in Queens Park Rangers’ academy when he set up a grassroots team for local children under the age of 10.

“I had a passion for helping young people achieve their full potential,” he said in an interview on Brentford’s official website earlier this year. “Even while I was playing as a professional, I was always aware that if it didn’t work out or if I didn’t maintain a career until I was 35, I could fall back onto coaching because it’s the next best thing to playing.”

Cochrane did have a successful career, playing over 100 matches in the Football League and winning 14 international caps for the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Before he retired, he started volunteering with Tottenham’s youth teams. Cochrane worked with other talented coaches in Spurs’ academy, including Burnley’s head coach, Scott Parker, Matt Wells — who is now Ange Postecoglou’s senior assistant — John McDermott and Chris Ramsey.

McDermott spent 15 years at Tottenham and became their head of coaching and player development before he joined the Football Association in March 2020. Less than 12 months later, he replaced Les Reed as technical director. McDermott reached out to Cochrane to see if he was interested in working with Tuchel.

In an interview with The Athletic in July 2022, Ramsey praised Cochrane’s ability to “connect with anybody at any level of a club”.

“He had a massive passion for the game,” said Ramsey, who spent nine years as QPR’s technical director. “He ended up working with the young players and showed his skill and ability to teach. That is what he is — an absolutely fantastic teacher and coach. He wasn’t one of those people who came in and thought, ‘I’ve played the game, so I know everything’. He was respectful, but he picked it up very quickly. He went back to university (Cochrane graduated in 2017 from The Open University with a degree in business, leadership and management). He wanted to learn different things and he’s also an innovator.”

During his time with Spurs, Cochrane helped to oversee the development of future England internationals Noni Madueke and Kyle Walker-Peters, as well as Japhet Tanganga, Oliver Skipp and Josh Onomah. He spent nine years there before he became the England Under-15s head coach after seeing an advert online. He worked with then England first-team manager Gareth Southgate, his assistant, Steve Holland, and other age-group coaches including Steve Cooper and Kevin Betsy. Cochrane played for Crewe between 2003 and 2006 when Holland was a member of the backroom staff.

In 2019, he completed his UEFA Pro Licence — alongside Kevin O’Connor, a future colleague at Brentford — was promoted to under-16s head coach and helped England win the UEFA Under-16 Development Tournament. The following year, he was appointed as the under-17s head coach and youth development phase lead. He helped to nurture lots of different players, including Newcastle United full-back Lewis Hall and Manchester City’s Rico Lewis.

Cochrane worked alongside Scott Parker at Tottenham (Kieran Galvin/Getty Images)

In June 2021, he left the FA to become Manchester United’s head of player development and coaching. It was his responsibility to help academy players break into the first team. He only spent 12 months with United, but they won the FA Youth Cup for the first time since 2011, beating Nottingham Forest 3-1 at Old Trafford. United’s side included future first-team stars Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo.

Senior figures at Brentford had been monitoring Cochrane’s progress ever since his time with England’s youth teams and during the brief stint he had under Mark Robinson at AFC Wimbledon in 2021. Cochrane wanted the opportunity to step up into a first-team environment, while Frank and director of football Phil Giles wanted a fresh voice on the coaching staff who could bring new ideas after a successful first season in the Premier League.

Cochrane’s track record of working with and developing young talent, which is central to Brentford’s long-term vision, helped him stand out. Frank and Giles held multiple meetings with Cochrane before he was offered the newly created role of head of coaching — this title was later changed to assistant coach.

At the time, Brian Riemer — now Denmark’s head coach — was second in command to Frank. They have a close relationship that stretches back over two decades to when they were coaching rival youth teams in Denmark. Riemer’s main responsibility was to coach the defence alongside O’Connor and feed information to Frank on the touchline during a game. When he joined Belgian side Anderlecht in December 2022, he was replaced by Claus Norgaard, who also shares a long history with Frank.

Cochrane’s role on a matchday is different. He will often sit up in the stands with O’Connor and the analysts. They have a better, wider view of the pitch and will communicate with the bench if they spot the opposition team doing anything different to what they expected. At home games, he tends to sit one row behind the bench at a slightly elevated position.

In the build-up to a game, Cochrane’s main role is to work on the team’s attacking patterns with Frank. There is a clip on Brentford’s social media accounts from last year where he accurately predicts what is about to unfold in a training session when he urges winger Keane Lewis-Potter to attack the back post and score on the rebound.

When you know, you know @justincochrane8 pic.twitter.com/ayRFtg4bg7

— Brentford FC (@BrentfordFC) May 17, 2024

He has taken on more responsibility in west London. Cochrane now plans a lot of the training sessions, which Frank will then lead. Cochrane tailors the drills around the tactical setup of their next opponent or based on what he thinks individuals within the squad need to improve on.

Every player at Brentford is assigned to a member of the coaching staff. The coach is responsible for creating and analysing video clips of that individual and discussing what they did well or where they could improve. They are encouraged to have conversations about their personal lives, too. Cochrane looks after a group that includes Lewis-Potter and Kevin Schade, although he will also offer advice to players who are not his direct responsibility. He is popular and well-respected. One source close to Cochrane, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, described him as “calm and thoughtful, but he has a little bit of edge” when needed.

When Josh Dasilva came off the bench and scored a late winner against Nottingham Forest in April 2023, he praised Cochrane. Dasilva loves to drift out to the right wing and cut inside on to his stronger foot, his left. The attacking midfielder will often aim a curling effort towards the far post, but Cochrane encouraged him to add more variety to his strikes.

“I was just saying to Justin we worked on that (finish) yesterday (in training),” Dasilva told Brentford’s website. “I always go far post and yesterday the mannequin was set in a way where I couldn’t go far post and I had to go near post.”

Cochrane and O’Connor have worked diligently with Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa to improve their finishing too. During his first season in the top flight, Mbeumo only scored three times from open play in 35 appearances. The Cameroon international has improved massively and he has 15 goals in 29 games in this campaign.

Wissa has always been an excellent finisher, but he has already beaten his previous best tally (12), with 14 in 26 matches. Mohamed Salah (27), Erling Haaland (21), Alexander Isak (19) and Chris Wood (18) are the only players to have scored more than Wissa and Mbeumo in the top flight this season. There are a few different factors for their improvement and Cochrane’s coaching is one of them.

Luke Amos, who now plays for Perth Glory in Australia, spent 14 years at Tottenham and worked under Cochrane in different age groups. The midfielder praised his former coach’s vibrant “energy” and enthusiasm.

“With Justin, it was all about fresh ideas,” Amos told The Athletic in 2022. “He would watch Barcelona or Real Madrid in the Champions League on a Tuesday and then in training on Wednesday he would say, ‘I saw this last night, let’s try it’. To have a coach who wants to try different things is refreshing.

“He reminded us that football is about fun, but you need to train properly. I’ve never seen him lose his head, but if training wasn’t right or someone was being sloppy, he would definitely tell them. He sets high demands. That’s what the best coaches do.

“He is so good to work with and you can always approach him. Everyone connected with him easily. He was my coach at different age groups. He is not going to be the same with me when I was 14 and when I’m 20 — he adapts. When I was going through a few things, Justin would help out — like my mentality and not getting too frustrated — because that is something I definitely struggled with when I was younger.”

Cochrane has spent the last three seasons as Brentford’s assistant coach (Andrew Matthews/Getty Images)

Cochrane is not the first member of Brentford’s staff to be allowed to pursue opportunities with a national team. The head of athletic performance, Chris Haslam, and the lead performance nutritionist, Ted Munson, both worked with Denmark at last summer’s European Championship. Former analyst Jack Wilson spent his international breaks with Northern Ireland. Brentford considered the potential impact of losing Cochrane during pre-season next year — it will clash with the World Cup — before they gave their blessing to his new job.

Cochrane can offer Tuchel a deeper insight into a few players on the fringes of England’s squad. Former Brentford striker Ivan Toney, who has scored 16 goals in 22 appearances for Saudi Pro League side Al Ahli, missed out on a place in this camp to Dominic Solanke.

“It will, I think, be important to go to see Ivan in the coming weeks, to watch a game live, maybe watch training live, to get a better feeling for him — he is on the list,” Tuchel said. “It was a purely sporting decision for Dominic in the end. It was nothing to do with Saudi Arabia or if we don’t trust the league there. I had just much more evidence and observation live of the matches from Dominic, so straight away I made that choice.”

Cochrane worked with Toney closely for two years and that includes the 2022-23 campaign when he finished with 20 league goals. Lewis-Potter has been in excellent form for Brentford in the unfamiliar position of left-back and he was capped four times by England’s Under-21s. Rico Henry was one of Brentford’s most consistent performers until he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in September 2023 and it has been a difficult journey to return to full fitness. If Henry can rediscover the form he showed before his injury, then Tuchel should consider him as an option at left-back.

Cochrane has experience of coaching in the Premier League, on the international stage and of working with some of England’s brightest young talent. He should be the perfect addition to Tuchel’s staff.

(Top photo: Mike Egerton/Getty Images)