What's your take on pre-season?

[mccity]

Of course it's important. Although it's worth remembering both Manchester clubs didn't have much of a break after the end of the last season too.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Pre-season is a hindrance every year. They should be called Promotional Tours rather than pre-season.

If you were to draw up the worst possible scenario to prepare athletes for a season of performance, these round the world marketing tours would be top of the list.

Just imagine how good football would be if the management and fitness teams got to run pre-season instead of the board rooms of clubs…

At the start of this season, it’s not pre-season that we missed, we miss that every year, but what we didn’t get is recovery time at the end of last season. However, it wasn’t the physical recovery that we missed, it was mental.

I think the fact of the matter was that there was huge expectation of this team winning the Champions League yet we were fucking atrocious, same in the FA Cup, and went out of both comps. I think there was a massive hangover from this for a few months where we didn’t have time off at the end of last season to get over that and refocus, remotivate and build-up ahead of the new season.

We came into the season flat, we hadn’t got over those defeats. I also came into the season flat, and didn’t get over the performances and losing to Arsenal and Lyon until about November. I was furious with the team and manager for months. I reckon they were all furious with themselves n’all.

But over time these things subside and we started putting the odd performances together, the confidence started to come back… then we went on that fantastic run, and we were back!

If it was up to the management and fitness teams, though, pre-season would probably look something like this:
Week 1 - recovery, week off
Week 2 - recovery, week off
Week 3 - recovery, week off
Week 4 - recovery, week off
Week 6 - training at the CFA
Week 7 - altitude training somewhere in the Alps; plus 1 game
Week 8 - warm weather training somewhere in the Med; plus 2 games
Week 9 - back to training at the CFA; plus 3 games
Week 10 - Local tournament somewhere like Dublin/Glasgow/London/Manchester; 3 games
Week 11 - You’d hope to be in the Community Shield, if not a final training game
Week 12 - season starts

For me as well, the season would not start until the final weekend in August.

In Pep’s first year at Bayern, he asked for full control of pre-season and had three tournaments in Germany with some warm weather training in the Med in the middle. Bayern played 11 pre-season games all within a few hundred miles of Munich or in Munich itself (we played them in the tournament held in their own ground that year).

 

[mat]

Pre-season is a hindrance every year. They should be called Promotional Tours rather than pre-season.

If you were to draw up the worst possible scenario to prepare athletes for a season of performance, these round the world marketing tours would be top of the list.

Just imagine how good football would be if the management and fitness teams got to run pre-season instead of the board rooms of clubs…

At the start of this season, it’s not pre-season that we missed, we miss that every year, but what we didn’t get is recovery time at the end of last season. However, it wasn’t the physical recovery that we missed, it was mental.

I think the fact of the matter was that there was huge expectation of this team winning the Champions League yet we were fucking atrocious, same in the FA Cup, and went out of both comps. I think there was a massive hangover from this for a few months where we didn’t have time off at the end of last season to get over that and refocus, remotivate and build-up ahead of the new season.

We came into the season flat, we hadn’t got over those defeats. I also came into the season flat, and didn’t get over the performances and losing to Arsenal and Lyon until about November. I was furious with the team and manager for months. I reckon they were all furious with themselves n’all.

But over time these things subside and we started putting the odd performances together, the confidence started to come back… then we went on that fantastic run, and we were back!

If it was up to the management and fitness teams, though, pre-season would probably look something like this:
Week 1 - recovery, week off
Week 2 - recovery, week off
Week 3 - recovery, week off
Week 4 - recovery, week off
Week 6 - training at the CFA
Week 7 - altitude training somewhere in the Alps; plus 1 game
Week 8 - warm weather training somewhere in the Med; plus 2 games
Week 9 - back to training at the CFA; plus 3 games
Week 10 - Local tournament somewhere like Dublin/Glasgow/London/Manchester; 3 games
Week 11 - You’d hope to be in the Community Shield, if not a final training game
Week 12 - season starts

For me as well, the season would not start until the final weekend in August.

In Pep’s first year at Bayern, he asked for full control of pre-season and had three tournaments in Germany with some warm weather training in the Med in the middle. Bayern played 11 pre-season games all within a few hundred miles of Munich or in Munich itself (we played them in the tournament held in their own ground that year).

I hope Pep has this as a contract extension stipulation. I'd love to see him implement that here.

It's a balance of "promoting the brand" and keeping players relaxed and fresh.

Pisses me off that every pre season seems to be weeks in either China or USA.