Happy Christmas to everyone. Priviledged again to watch from inside at Carrington alongside BMoon's NMT and here's his report:
I was kindly allowed in to watch training today along with DH, it's a little different watching them at such close quarters rather than up high on a tree stump or ladders.
20 players on show today, including Micah, Kolarov and Dzeko, the morning started with the boss talking to the players as he does but at the end a special congratulations went to Yaya for his award along with a warm handshake from Mancini and big cheers from his teammates.
The players then went onto a light session with the usual ball work and stretching excercises, little one two's, laying the ball off to the next person then pushing for the outside of the square, all designed to warm the body up.
Onto another pitch where there was some ferocious tackling done on Mancini and Aguero by the metal mannequins, both walking backwards into them without seeing them and ending up on the floor, i'm sure the club are happy the fences are up now or that would have been definately in the press over the next couple of days, Mario found the two instances hilarious!
Yaya departed the action after the first session due to his travel schedule recently, nothing to worry about.
Then back into a game situation with 10 v 10 on a half of the pitch, basically one side had to get 10 passes in whilst the other team had to stop them and when they got possession they had to try and score, that was all about keeping the ball and Mancini was very vocal on this, the session then ended with the defence being kept back for a chat whilst we were ushered off to the exit.
Very grateful for the visit today, it's certainly harder to judge and see what's going on when you're at ground level.
We had Vieira on one side and Nasri's younger brothers on the other. Can't be bad but today my special moment was getting a big christmas hug from Sharon Latham the official City photographer. With the extra fencing all around now there were just 2 other fans trying their best to get a view and no photographers in sight. As we were shown to the pitch by Jose we got just a brief nod of ackowledgement from the boss before he gathered the players together for the usual initial chat.
Mancini worked with 2 separate teams (interspoersed withthe mannequins) and it was a bit of back to basics and reminders of the required shape for different situations and of course plenty of passing movements. Simple but essential and effective stuff.It finished with a little on defending set pieces before all the players were changed around so the boss could do the same work with a different 11. Really hard to decide which was the best of the 2 teams!
Not that much to say about the 10 v 10 game.Cant remember a goal although Nigel had one disallowed for an earlier foul. Plenty of effort and intensity about it though which is even more apparent being closer to the action.Kolarov and Dzeko fully involved today and looking fine so really only Hargreaves not fully involved as he was working very hard close by with a couple of the coaches.
So that was that. Didnt see the final part with Mancini working with all the defenders but I expect it would have been quite a short session.No shooting practice at the end for anyone but I do remember thinking about the last training session where AJ stayed late ( he often does) to practice his shots from the edge of the box.Always good to see that pay off the following day with that goal against Stoke.
How about 6 points from the next 2 games as a christmas present?
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