Martin tells us whats in store for the players in pre-season week two
Gillingham kicked-off their friendly fixtures yesterday with a brace of wins, 4-2 at Faversham Town and 2-1 at Ashford United. Speaking after the Gills second win of the day at Ashford, Martin Allen gave us an insight into what lies in store for his squad this week.“The players are all in on Monday for a double session and then on Tuesday we play Wimbledon at the training ground in a game of four 20 minute periods.
“That only comes to 80 minutes though doesn’t it? We’ll have to change that! The players will train after that as well. We’ll train Wednesday, off Thursday, then train again Friday, then all the players will have 60 minutes again next weekend.
“Unfortunately our game at Chatham next Saturday has been called off but we’ll play in the afternoon at Bromley and we’ve just arranged another game at the training ground for 11.00am so that everyone can play for one hour.”
With the prize of a place at the Gills Le Touquet training camp up for grabs, players will be keen to make an impression on the Gaffer this week. Martin continued, “We’ll have a strong team to play at Bromley on Saturday and a very strong team for the game in the morning at the training ground, and the development squad will fill the gaps on the substitute places.
“After that, on the Saturday evening we’ll select 22 players to come with us to the training camp in France on the Tuesday. It’s going to be tough for the players this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday but they can manage it, they can cope with it.
“The really hard work starts Monday to be honest. It’s a mixture of mental fitness, mental strength, physical strength, obviously, tactical and technical. All that work will start this week. We’ve put the ground work in over the last three days now we’ll start to extend it.
“I don’t think anyone’s made any tackles today so we’ll start to be competitive, faster, stronger and with all those things comes mental strength. We all know that from the neck downwards is important but from the neck up is vital and we’ll start to put that into place now.