Assistant Manager Gavin Strachan on integration and being inventive.
Gavin Strachan gave his exclusive thoughts regarding pre-season to doncasterroversfc.co.uk
The assistant manager – and Darren Ferguson – has enjoyed running the rule over the first team squad for their first full pre-season schedule which gets underway on Tuesday with a friendly against local side Rossington Main.
“I think the first things you look for is who’s looked after themselves over the closed season, which I’m pleased to say they all have,” he said.
“We’re trying to integrate the fitness work with the football work and I suppose that’s where the imagination comes into the sessions that you try and put on so you can try and give the players a bit of everything.
“So we’re looking, do the players know the rules and responsibilities of the formation we want to play? Are they fit enough for the style of play that we want? Do they really understand what we’re after? So, that’s what we are striving for morning and afternoon. Up to where we are right now we are well on track I think.
“Certainly In terms of our training schedule, there are weeks where we’ll have to focus on our defensive work if you like. Obviously against Middlesbrough and Newcastle you would imagine them to have quite a bit of the ball. So you try and plan your training schedule around that and then there will be other games where hopefully we will work on breaking teams down. So, we have tried to get a pre-season schedule that will try and compliment all those areas.”
Strachan revealed that he was delighted with the eight summer acquisitions that the club have made in the close season as they prepare for life in EFL Sky Bet League Two.
“I’m really pleased that we’ve managed to identify targets and we had the backing of the board that we can go and do it,” he said.
“It’s not just what they are like technically as footballers, it’s what they bring as characters.
“Straight away they’ve fitted in really well and the new players who need some help are pleased with what’s come in, in terms of the fitness and desire of the new players. Where we are right now, I’m really pleased.”
“We’ve been seeing who’d stuck to the closed season programme and then just getting the players a touch of the ball, getting the cobwebs out the way and really trying to get a head start on the things we want to work at this season, systems and showing the players how we want to play.”
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