A fairly gentle low key session today with an afternoon start.The equipment was being set up well before 2pm but after a while it was clear there were some issues and they ended up moving everything across to the pitch in front of the buildings. Seemingly the original planned pitch was a bit hard and bare even after the sprinklers had been on ( Giving us watchers a shower at the same time)
Missing today were Lescott ( apparently doing very well and a possibility to start training next week) Micah ( not far off but not quite ready) Johnson/Silvinho ,Taylor and Petrov . Petrov though was doing some work with a physio right in front of us and seemed ok ( signed an autograph too while he was close as did quite a few later) I think NDJ was training but he wasn't there for the latter stages and nobody was scythed to the ground so maybe he wasn't.
Good to see Bridge and Ireland back in full training. The 2 "reserves" involved today were Cunningham and Boyata. Initially they did keep ball circles before Mancini got them all together for a chat.Then they broke into 2 groups for some jogging and stretches before having a pass and move session trying to achieve 10 touches.This game developed so that after achieving the required number of passes they had to complete a pass into the end zone for a point.All good stuff and at the beginning there was some debate about how many touches were allowed .It seemed Mancini was suggesting maybe 2 or 3 touches but Fausto , who was reffing it was after something else. All I heard was Bridge shouting to Fausto telling him he was the ref so make a decision and get on with it.Sounds bad as I have typed it but it was quite funny at the time.
After this exercise they split into 3 groups. Mancini took the defenders behind the fencing and the rest split strikers and midfield to do some specific running/sprinting work. The physio with the strikers had a bit of a coughing/choking fit and got no sympathy at all from the players.Just broad grins which might have been worse if fans hadn't been so close.
Mancini was working on shape and positioning with the defensive group as much as anything and being very meticulous.His attention to detail was noticeable.They all then switched around with all the midfield and attackers joining Mancini so he could work on attacking plays.It was actually very windy today which made it quite hard to do too much. Crosses were flying too far or just getting held up but at times it seemed very positive to see the way they were moving off the ball.Not surprisingly they cut the session a bit short.
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