‘I’ve never ever been man-marked like I was by Arsenal legend Tony Adams’

Former EFL manager Graham Westley says Tony Adams stuck to him like a rash when they played each other.

The 55-year-old insists Adams was the best man-marker he ever came across and admitted he was inspired by the Arsenal legend's defensive relentlessness. Speaking on the Under The Cosh podcast, Westley says he used to 'man-mark' his players before and after training in the hope that, come matchday, they'd find it easier to evade defenders during set-pieces.

"I was always big on my players with man-marking and breaking free from man-marking," he said. "The best man-marker who ever marked me was Tony Adams. I've never been man-marked like I was man-marked by Tony Adams.

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"We all know what it's like to be well man-marked. So I would come in [to training] and say [to one of the players], 'Morning, how you doing?' and I'd man-mark him. And he would look at me and go, 'What are you doing?', and I'd go, 'I'm man-marking you – break free from me, go on'.

"Sometimes I'd do it the other way around," he added, "and I'd go, 'I am going in my office, stop me'. So all through the week every time I see a player I'd man-mark him or I'd make him man-mark me. If you add that up, every time a player broke free from my man-marking I used to think to myself we've got a little bit more of a chance at the weekend of him breaking free from his marker at a set-play."

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Westley claims his bonkers methods worked too, insisting his teams always had good records when it came to set-pieces. He said: "Over the course of time, my teams' record at scoring from set-plays and defending set-plays were very very good. Maybe all that man-marking made a bit of a difference."

The London-born former coach faced Adams as a teenager while playing against Arsenal for QPR's U18s side. But while Adams went on to become one of the finest players in English football history, Westley's playing career never really got off the ground. He retired in 1994 aged 26 after dropping into non-league football in his early 20s.

Westley got his first job as a manager two years later, and gradually worked his way up the pyramid. He spent the bulk of his managerial career at Stevenage, taking charge of the team on four separate occasions, but also had notable stints at Preston, Peterborough, Newport County and Barnet.

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