We thought the focus on pre-season friendlies was ludicrous until we saw everybody lose their sh*t over training videos…
Reading anything into pre-season friendlies is a fool’s errand. We know this. Summer friendlies are merely training games, increasingly disguised as something more meaningful by clubs and promoters desperate to sell their wares. They are merely a warm-up before league campaigns kick off. Even then, the notion has crept in that teams can ease their way into the season, as if points in August don’t count in the same way they do in May.
All of which makes friendlies even more irrelevant for anything other than building fitness and cohesion, though in the barren wasteland that is July in a (male) tournament-free summer, newspapers and websites have little choice but to learn things (usually five) from friendlies. But that thirst for knowledge and numbers seems to be reaching new levels of desperation this summer; now we’ve carried over the nit-picking from friendlies into training.
Erik ten Hag and Antonio Conte have both had their sessions dissected this week, with the search for clues over what the new-ish Manchester United might look like coinciding with analysis of Tottenham’s pre-season workouts.
To summarise: Fred gave the ball away in a training drill, an error we can only assume Frenkie De Jong has never made; and Antonio Conte is a proper b*stard.
Poring over United’s training session is perhaps slightly more understandable. In these, the earliest days of a new regime, any hint as to what difference the manager might make is gathered up as evidence for whatever stance you wish to take. The conclusion from what has been fed back from the camera phones of travelling hacks suggests Ten Hag wants United to move the ball smarter and faster, and press more intently when they lose it.
Anyone who had taken just a cursory glance at Ajax in the last couple of years knew those to be Ten Hag’s priorities upon taking over at Old Trafford. Perhaps the only revealing insight – again, not a surprising one – was just how much the United players seemed to struggle with the tempo ratcheted up to something closer to what Ten Hag demands.
Clip of Rashford’s header here from Sancho’s clipped cross. Audio and more videos here on inside look at Ten Hag’s #mufc training session https://t.co/yq4TQF38Kn pic.twitter.com/qsDp1HHubY
— James Ducker (@TelegraphDucker) July 12, 2022
In South Korea, the Tottenham players were struggling…
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