Training Friday 12/2

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Seemed a bit more like a "normal " training session today. Missing again was Bellers but AJ was back and Richards also there but not involved in contact football so just doing more 1 to 1 stuff.

The usual start jogging the pitch in team formation lead by Mancini was followed by one of the standard warm up exercise routines.A break then as they just split into pairs and passed the ball around for 5 minutes before they all played in a 10 a side game with the 2 5 a side nets for each team to score in.This game is all about pass and move and switching the play and at pace which sounds exactly what we want against a team like Stoke. Nothing particular to pick out in this except that it didn't seem as intense as I have seen in the past.Competitive but almost as if it seemed nobody seemed that bothered if a goal was scored against them.Maybe that was just the way I saw it from a distance.

After that one group played a 4 a side passing game with 5 a side nets and no keeper! Whilst " a team " moved onto the pitch behind the fence to do some specific practice on defending corners and free kicks. Great care was taken on the positioning of players which also included in those designated to break away when the ball is cleared.On this occasion a bunch of the reserves were brought over to provide the attacking threat and the inswinging corners were taken by Cunningham from the right and Ibrahim on the left.After plenty of work on these they even did the same from free kicks from the edge of the centre circle.

They finished with the same team doing some attacking work which was encouraging in the numbers geting forward and with quick interplay ending with getting the ball wide and ideally a cross and finish. A fairly short session overall and the last 2 in were Ade who had a brief competition shooting against Taylor ( I think Stu won that one) and Petrov. Martin was first out for training as he so often is( competing with Bellers) and doing some warm up work on his own today but he also stayed later to do even more work including short sprints on his own.

[carolina-blue]

They finished with the same team doing some attacking work which was encouraging in the numbers geting forward and with quick interplay


Glad to hear this ,

Thanks Doug

[Mark (Blue Army)]

Cheers Doug.

[Scorchio]

Great info as ever Doug, main reason to look at this board. Always a bit concerned they never seem to do that much. I guess its a balance between keeping them active and not knackering them for the upcoming game.