Newcastle, you’ve gone too far this time!
Come home?
By Dave Eadevic
July 24 2014
Louis van Gaal comments yesterday over how he has sort assurances that his Manchester Untied squad will not have to travel as far for pre-season next year, touched in me a debate I have been having on and off for a few years.
What exactly should the point be of pre-season?
Now to me, it should be about getting the players fit, allowing new players a chance to learn a system, how their new team mates function, hopefully strike up relationships on the field, where it can become second nature to know where your strike/defensive partner is likely to be. A chance to learn to pull off a killer pass, which looks more like telepathy than football.
Unfortunately it now appears to have become a marketing exercise, in that expression loved of marketing executives everywhere a chance to ‘raise our global brand’’.
Fine I suppose to a point, but what if the football suffers as a consequence?
Newcastle will rack up an impressive 24,687 thousand miles, almost double the 13,478 that van Gaal, one of the finest managers around deems too far.
You obviously have to factor into that, the player’s fitness, barring injury this period of the year is as unfit as these players should ever be, surely they should be racking up time in the gym, not time in airports?
Don’t pick me up wrong I am not saying we should not go to these far flung places, give a chance for fans there to see the lads, and a chance for a few from here to explore a bit, I just think perhaps a game or two at the end of the season may be a better idea.
A jaunt into Europe, where I would argue that the standard will usually be a bit higher anyway, followed by a few real friendlies with the lower league local teams, perhaps finishing with a couple of games at St James’, must be a more productive way to achieve team bonding and a cohesion on the pitch.
It seems to me that the very point of pre-season, to allow us to get ready for the next long slog that is the Premiership, appears to have been forgotten.
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I can remember going to the Newcastle/Gateshead cup about 10 years ago, there was us, Rangers, Sporting Lisbon & feyenoord all played each other over 2 days at St james Park, the level of football was higher than playing the teams we are at the minute and the ground was full for all of the games so it meant extra revenue for the club.
I'd like us to go back to something like that and aso help out some of the local teams by playing them.
It is but i doubt it's anything to do with 'building up the Newcastle brand'
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I would argue it is.
Also mental, I couldn't agree with you more about local friendlies.
I very much doubt there are many clubs who are marketing themselves with these trips these days