pre-season friendlies

OK, I stand (partially) corrected but I still don't think that our average preseason competition has been equal to the level of competition we face once the PL season begins.
It means the start of the season is something like a hard slap in the face.
Maybe that's just the reality of being in the toughest league in the world though.
(Someone will argue with this, but my point is that the cumulative quality of all the PL teams is higher than that for any other league; not that the PL has the best team(s) in the world)
 
Wouldn't really matter though, difference between competitive and friendly is bigger than the ability gap. Just look at how many upsets happen in the cup competitions
 
I know this thread has kind of gone on a tangent but Bristol City have announced we'll be visiting Friday, July 27th (7pm kick-off)
 
I know this thread has kind of gone on a tangent but Bristol City have announced we'll be visiting Friday, July 27th (7pm kick-off)

So a Cup squad for this game and for the one at Forest on Saturday 28th! Not much thought for the fans in all this. I certainly won't bother to go to either game.

With the Premier League starting on w/e 11 August that won't give us much time to put our preferred starting eleven out in a pre-season game.
 
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We really do have an inflated ego of ourself these days don’t we. Home friendlies against Real Madrid, AC Milan, Valencia, Hoffenhein, Napoli and away friendlies against good Championship opposition just isn’t good enough anymore apparently. What are we expecting, our own version of the Emirates Cup with Barca, Juventus and Bayern participating?! Maybe we could even get the winners of the World Cup to stop by for a celebratory friendly down Dean Court.

It’s not the quality of the opposition that has been a problem in recent years, it’s experimenting with different formations and line ups and thus not giving the first 11 a chance to play with each other before the 1st game.
 
[QUOTE="james_AFCB, post: 184148, member: 54

It’s not the quality of the opposition that has been a problem in recent years, it’s experimenting with different formations and line ups and thus not giving the first 11 a chance to play with each other before the 1st game.[/QUOTE]


Quite agree. Not once in any of our pre-season games last year, did we play anything like the team that looked so disjointed and thus lost the opening game to relegated West Brom.
 
We do need to sort out what 11 and system we want to play come the opening game. Those two piss poor performances and defeats to West Brom and Watford, combined with a following run of top 6 fixtures and thus defeats, set the tone for the entire first half of the season which saw us in the relegation zone at Christmas. Crystal Palace had "the worst ever start to a Premier League season" but we were right there with them, and would have gotten far more press and pressure had it not been for their marginally larger incompetence.
 
I think its especially important to hit the ground running at start of next season. Many of our rivals will have players at the World Cup while our lot should be well rested after their beach holidays.

I do get the arguement we look to peak later in the season, but this is a good opportunity to take advantage and get some points on the board early. We can't assume our superior mid to late season fitness levels will continue to guarantee last gasp goals
 
Given the drills and specialist match practice Eddie does, I don’t think we need to play that starting eleven in friendlies. Pairings of players are helpful though like ake and cook centre half or Pugh and Daniels. Eddie deliberately selects two games in successive days so must be a reason, one of which I assume is to give everyone 90 mins with enough recovery time to leave time for review and prep for next game rather than dragging out over a week.
 
Given the drills and specialist match practice Eddie does, I don’t think we need to play that starting eleven in friendlies. Pairings of players are helpful though like ake and cook centre half or Pugh and Daniels. Eddie deliberately selects two games in successive days so must be a reason, one of which I assume is to give everyone 90 mins with enough recovery time to leave time for review and prep for next game rather than dragging out over a week.



Eddie doesn’t get everything right.
 
Brilliant! Holiday this year has been set so we don't miss any league matches but shame that we miss this against one of our "local" Spanish Clubs. On the day in question I'll be about 45 minutes away...........from Sevilla! Selfishly, would have loved this to be away but you can't have everything. I suppose I now have to make a decision, which of the two do I adopt for when I'm in Spain?
 

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