Mrs Barista wrote:Sounds like we're planning a warm weather camp this time round (Tenerife or Portugal) in December. Hope we get 3 friendlies, not a derby (although suspect it will be). Something like Cas at home, Doncaster and Hudds away would do.
Never really sure how important Pre Season is in the context of how much influence it has come the business end of the season. But Ellis definitely seems to have benefited from a full pre season this year, sounds like the same with Sa is hoping for the same. .
I'm never convinced wasting money taking the players off on 'holiday' is beneficial at all, they should be more focused on training in the cold weather here (ready for the cold early games) and use an indoor facility if the weather is overly inclement.
As for the importance of good friendlies, well look what happened this season, an absolute shambles and that's how the rest of it went.
The whole point of friendlies is to get your squad up to match fitness/speed and giving players chances to get a starting spot based on form so you have the formation of your best starting 17 at that point in time.
Thus from that getting wins early doors should breed confidence and as we know that is a huge factor in how people perform, it also makes the fans feel more enthused and winning makes people come through the gate, ergo more money for the club.
if you're better prepared fitness wise due to better quality friendlies then you're also less likely to get injuries as players fatigue at end of games. Losing players at the beginning does have a huge impact throughout the season and you can end up playing catch-up all the way up until the play-offs (IF you make them) as there is a tendancy to rush players back especially if performances/results aren't great and with the toll a season takes you're basically fighting fires if you get a couple of injuries, more so if they turn out to be profile players.
I think the friendlies are far more important than we (as a club) take them for, we just cannot afford to do that again.
As an aside I still don't think we are doing everything possible in the marginal gains ethos. Things like having a kicking coach BEFORE the start of the season unlike the nonsense this year, to ensure that whomever is taking the kicks (not just one player) is drilled in such, that the kickers practise regularly, I'd hate to think how many kicks we missed this season because our preparation was micturate poor.