The Euros are over – where on Earth are we going to get our football fix now?
The season is still more than a month away, and even our first friendly isn’t for two weeks.
Until then, it’s slim pickings – no wonder Chelsea are capitalising by putting out as much training ground content as possible to keep us entertained.
To be fair, it’s a particularly interesting time to take a look at what’s going on in training. There’s not only a new coach in town, he’s one with a very distinctive style which is going to need some very specific coaching. He’s got just a month or so to change the whole team’s playing style quite dramatically, and his hands-on style in training is going to be essential in getting players to do what he wants right away.
So the in focus video from today was fascinating. It’s clear what Enzo is trying to do here – get really specific with his players so they knew just what he wants.
What Maresca wants
Eavesdropping on his summary before training starts reveals just what the plan in these early weeks will be:
“It’s positional work here and there, 4 minutes. Then after 4 minutes you have box to box work, then we come back in positional game, then we go physical work, positional game, physical work. Ok? We alternate.”
“It’s two touches, right think quick guys, one or two touches okay?!
From there you can see just what the plan is – plenty of physical work (which is the traditional preseason style), but mixed in with that a lot of positional work getting the players drilled in the systems which have to become second nature to them.
The “two touches” element is going to be essential too. Gone are going to be the dribbling and freeform styles in attack. It’s going to be rapid passing and moving from front to back – if all goes to plan.