Stuart Gray says Germany games will be tough for Cobblers
Stuart Gray believes the Cobblers' pre-season trip to Germany will prove hugely beneficial to both himself and the players.
The Town squad head out to Dusseldorf on Monday where they will stay and train for almost a week, and play three friendly matches at the ground of Oberliga Nordrhein club FC Kleve.
The training camp on foreign soil has become a staple of pre-season preparations since the trip to the United States in 2003.
Since then, various managers have taken the players to Spain and Austria with the same thing in mind – helping the new players bond with the established pros and building fitness in an intense training environment.
Gray, though, sees a third benefit to such trips, namely the opportunity for him to assess in microscopic detail the varying powers of his players.
"I'm a great believer in a six-week pre-season but it's nice to break it up a bit," he said.
"We go to Germany on Monday and we'll play three very tough games in the space of six days there.
"That will get our match sharpness up, it will help with team bonding, and it will give the new lads a chance to bed in and get to know everyone at the club.
"It will also enable me to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are as well, so this kind of trip has lots of benefits."
One benefit the players won't be experiencing are the bygone tour drinking sessions.
Gray said: "Those days are gone. It was probably a bit more like that when I was a player but I think with the schedule I'll be giving them they'll just want to go to bed."
Four players the manager has identified as being most in need of a solid pre-season campaign are Giles Coke, Gabor Gyepes, Chris Doig and Adebayo Akinfenwa, who all lost chunks of the 2007-08 season to bad injuries.
While the first pair are progressing nicely, a degree of caution is being taken with the club skipper and fans' favourite Akinfenwa.
"Gabor and Giles are looking fantastic, they've trained every day," he said.
"We're having to be a bit more careful with Bayo and Chris Doig, they've been getting a little bit of the cotton-wool treatment.
"We're doing two or three sessions a day at a very
high intensity and the last thing we would want is for either of those two to break down.
"So they're concentrating on strength and rehabilitation with the physios. They do that in the afternoon, and do their running in the morning.
"But I'm confident they'll be fine."
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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