Felt like going back to work today after a break ! Got there early with Lewis in case they were out early again but they weren't so it was a bit of walking around to keep warm as the cold wind was biting. Lewis totally under dressed for it too , typical young uns :)Training was all behind the fence again so it was just short glimpses we could manage trying not to overdo it so the security guys didn't get too much to complain about. To be fair to them they didn't go on to much apart from stressing the health and safety issues .
First out as ever were the keepers then 5 minutes later Mancini and the rest of the coaches . But after 5 minutes or so went back in to get the rest! Then they all came out pretty well as a group giving the one photographer little time to get sorted and all the pictures he wanted. Missing today were SWP/Stevie and RSC plus the obvious others. But included were quite a bunch of the reserves , Vidal,Boyata,Mee,Cunningham,Weiss,Ball,Tutte and One other who I can't remember or spell.
After a brief jog around to warm up they effectively split into pairs and as a whole group Mancini had them moving to different areas of the field to focus on shape and moving together as the ball is played around. Different considerations for different parts of the field. He had them doing this in all corners of the pitch , defensively and attacking as well as throught the central areas.No real ball play or movements but he was talking to them a lot and no doubt all about team play and supporting and angles etc.
This took quite a few minutes and they were all looking bloody cold. After this they split into groups with Mancini working again with a group mainly on defensive things.The group being Boyata,Micah,Vidal and Garrido with Weiss and Silvinho palying out wide to assist Mancini is the attacking side of things. Interesting to watch and plenty of emphasis put on concentration and reacting to different passes from the attacking plays.
Whilst this group were doing this there were 2 other groups working separately. One was just jogging around ( Tevez/Bellers and Petrov) whilst the others were basically doing basically warm up stuff with a ball..
After a fairly short time 4 or 5 went in and another few players joined in with Mancini's group for some plays which ended with crosses and finishing.That didn't go on for very long either and after just over an hour they called it a day.
Brian Kidd who had already said hello and asked if we had had a good Christmas said when they were starting to go in that it wasn't a long session today as there were lots of knocks and niggles after the 2 games so they were giving more recovery time before any hard training. This to the 2 "heads" peering over the fence!
Half way through all this Lewis went around the other side of the pitches as the fencing had blown down and you could get a view from there from some raised ground. It's a bit further away but no climbing involved. Trouble is there is plenty of muddy ground to walk through which is where Lewis lost his shoe! Classic. Pity there were no cameras to record Lewis hopping around when the shoe came off and inevitably dumping the shoeless foot into the mud as well. Shame I didn't see it :)
The mancityfans.net football forum
The BEST FORUM in all the land and all the world
[/center]
