Dean Smith said it was great to get back out on the training pitches as The Bees returned to pre-season training last week. After two days of testing at Jersey Road and the GSK Human Performance Lab on Wednesday and Thursday, Dean and the boys were back out on the training pitches for a first session on Friday. The Bees Head Coach told Bees Player that he was pleased to see that all the players had come back in shape and was looking forward to getting to work with the squad.
“We have about six or seven players who came in early last week because they had missed a lot of time last season because of injury,” said Dean, speaking after Friday’s session. “People like Philipp Hofmann, Lewis Macleod, Scott Hogan, and Andreas Bjelland really excelled last week and they are probably a bit ahead of the others in terms of their ball work. It is great to be on the green stuff. It is the first thing that you want to do. I have been twiddling my thumbs while they have been doing their lab testing. Everybody has come in fit and well. They had targets to meet and they met them. They had programmes to follow and, based on the hour they had on the training ground with me on Friday, they had followed them which is really pleasing. Gone are the days where you use pre-season for gaining fitness it is about preparing for the first game.”
Despite only returning to training on Friday there is less than a week to go until the first pre-season match of the season, a trip to Boreham Wood this coming Friday. The trip to Hertfordshire is the first of six pre-season friendlies ahead of the season opener on 6th August against Huddersfield Town and Dean is happy with the schedule put together for the players.
“There will be a lot of work to put in over the next six days before the game at Boreham Wood,” said Dean. “We will be ready to play 45 minutes in that game before we fly to Germany the next day. It is not a massive programme in terms of fixtures but we believe in the programme that we have got. Chris Haslam, who has taken over as the Head of Athletic Performance, is really switched on and is really good. The players really like him and he is getting the best out of the players.”
The first day of pre-season also saw three players join as Romaine Sawyers, John Egan, and Daniel Bentley signed on long-term deals from Walsall, Gillingham, and Southend United respectively. The trio, of which Sawyers is the oldest at 24, excelled in Sky Bet League One last season and Dean believes there is a lot of potential in the three new additions and he is delighted to have got them in at the start of pre-season.
“We have to get young, hungry players in who are good enough to come straight into the Championship but can develop further as well,” said Dean. “They are big players for us but are also investments for the future. Our ambition is to get into the Premier League and if we have got players who can development past the Championship then they can go with us. It is important to get players in at the start of pre-season. We are instilling our ideas in them. This is my first pre-season with this group of players even though I have been here for six months though. We will play with a few different things and formations this season. There are a few things that I would like to try and it is important that the players come in early to do that.”