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Lovely day and the first time with them all back since the BBurn win. 18 on show which is minus Tevez,Richards,Boateng but including MJ.Tevez coming on OK was the word with no comment about return dates.All seemed in very good spirits as they went through some running exercises in 3 groups. Lombardo leading one of the groups is really a loonie.Always messing about and great for injecting a laugh into procedings.

Didn't matter that it was warm today but Lescott still never took his woolly hat off! After the basic warm up stuff it was into a competitive passing game ,varying between one and two touch ans sometimes all in,with a lot of emphasis on the closing down work for the team without the ball and instantly you can hear Nigel's voice amongst the rest.Kidd also very vocal in shouting both encouragement as well as instruction.Plenty of effort going in and then a break before the 10 a side game.

Good to see Shay getting fully involved in this game too.As training games go this was quite a strong one and only one injury to report on.Nigel had a bandaged hand in the BBurn game but started today without one.After going down in a tackle today he clearly hurt it again and was in some pain with it.His reaction when he got up was to get on the ball and smash a shot in some anger. It went in off Vinnie leaving Joe stranded. I did notice Mario with a bangae as well but that was just his left thumb!!

Two goals from Mario at the other end as the game was coming to a close before Yaya squeezed a strong shot in to equalise and then effectively right on time, before Kiddo could shout golden goal, Yaya took a pass very well and fired a left footer in off a post to win the game.

That was the main effort over but a bunch stayed out for some finishing practice.Taking shots at Joe and Shay from a variety of situations with plenty of banter from the keepers when they got it wrong ( often) Best was probably Dzeko who does have 2 good feet,Mario not having the best session here and on one occasion did welly the ball as high and wide as he could seemingly on purpose.I think he was trying to clear the horses in the field behind the goal.Shay looks fully over the shoulder injury diving around for fun and making some excellent one handed saves and landing quite hard with no problems.Life in the old dog yet were his words.

As I left there was a big queue leading to the main entrance area with cars doing u turns to go the other way. I assume it was to the City entrance but it might have been something else.As I went the other way a couple of fire engines raced past going towards the problem.Nothing serious I hope.

Cheers Doug!

Must be great watching them train on days like today!

Hope you put some factor 30 on! Wouldn't want you to get red in any way!

Thank you for another great report:-)

Thaks for the report Doug ;-)

Cheers for that!

I remember Mario having a banfpdage on his finger for the Blackburn game, so it's probably an existing problem

cheers doug. great news about shay - would you expect him on the bench for west ham?

BmoreBlue wrote:cheers doug. great news about shay - would you expect him on the bench for west ham?

I doubt it.It was siad when he had the op that he would be out for the season and that would be what I would probably expect.Injuries and ops like that take a long time to recover from and although he was looking ok there is likely to be a lot more strengthening work still to do before he is considered ready for a match. But you never know.

Anyway I think Stu would be a very able deputy.

Cheers Doug. Was listening to TalkSport before and they had a piece on the antics that have been going on in the camp where the team keep playing tricks on each other, and especially on Mario; one of which was glueing his trainers to the ceiling and watching him trying to get them down. Anyway, they had Bobby Gould on who said that if these things are going on it shows that there are real bonds beginning to show with the players and that those bonds were the only thing that were missing from a title winning squad. Strangely, he got cut-off a minute or so later.

Oh, and those fire engines were there for a car crash just off the motorway at Carrington which caused the road to be closed - on the news.

Beefymcfc wrote:Cheers Doug. Was listening to TalkSport before and they had a piece on the antics that have been going on in the camp where the team keep playing tricks on each other, and especially on Mario; one of which was glueing his trainers to the ceiling and watching him trying to get them down. Anyway, they had Bobby Gould on who said that if these things are going on it shows that there are real bonds beginning to show with the players and that those bonds were the only thing that were missing from a title winning squad. Strangely, he got cut-off a minute or so later.

Oh, and those fire engines were there for a car crash just off the motorway at Carrington which caused the road to be closed - on the news.

I do think we have seen a few good signs from Mario that he is settling into premiership football,probably settling into life in England,defintely settling into the team both on the pitch and in training. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is all sorted now but certainly the players do seem to have a laugh with him ( not at or about him) but they are bound to be a bit wary of him at the same time.They would be stupid if they weren't.

All that is great but even if he is showing signs in matches we do still need more quality and more consistency from him.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:

Beefymcfc wrote:Cheers Doug. Was listening to TalkSport before and they had a piece on the antics that have been going on in the camp where the team keep playing tricks on each other, and especially on Mario; one of which was glueing his trainers to the ceiling and watching him trying to get them down. Anyway, they had Bobby Gould on who said that if these things are going on it shows that there are real bonds beginning to show with the players and that those bonds were the only thing that were missing from a title winning squad. Strangely, he got cut-off a minute or so later.

Oh, and those fire engines were there for a car crash just off the motorway at Carrington which caused the road to be closed - on the news.

I do think we have seen a few good signs from Mario that he is settling into premiership football,probably settling into life in England,defintely settling into the team both on the pitch and in training. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is all sorted now but certainly the players do seem to have a laugh with him ( not at or about him) but they are bound to be a bit wary of him at the same time.They would be stupid if they weren't.

All that is great but even if he is showing signs in matches we do still need more quality and more consistency from him.

Regarding Mario, at the end of the semi, SWP rugby tackled him in front of the City fans and wrestled him to the floor, resulting in Mario getting cramp. At the end of the BB game, Mario upended Dzeko as he was walking off. Neither seem like the actions of a team that are awkward around each other.