Preseason can be grueling; even more so when your preseason is in 90°F plus temperatures.
From a coaching perspective, it’s the time to build fitness and conditioning for the long season ahead, but also to give opportunities to players to prove themselves. From a club and commercial perspective, it’s a chance to grow the team’s profile around the world.
All these things exist in a delicate balance: matches in far-flung corners of the globe (not that Japan is that) are great from a marketing perspective, but is the volume of travel too much? How hard do you push your players so that they are peaking coming into the season proper? How do you balance ensuring your nailed-on starters are Premier League match-fit versus allowing your youth talent time to shine and possibly break through?
It’s likely this delicate balance that has resulted in the club scheduling an additional behind-closed-doors friendly later today (Thursday evening, Japan time) ahead of the first official friendly of the Asian tour on Saturday against Vissel Kobe, as reported by Alasdair Gold:
There’s not much info on the match, with neither a kick-off time nor opponent mentioned (though it’s likely to be a local club side); but the rationale is that with two official friendlies (plus another behind-closed-doors match against Cambridge United) already under the belt, it’s time for the senior players to start upping their minutes.
That doesn’t mean the youth players will be left out; there’s obviously a tight turnaround leading into the Vissel Kobe match, and it’s the same with the matches following, with the Kobe, K-League All Stars, and Bayern Munich friendlies all scheduled in the space of a week. There’s plenty of minutes to go around. My prediction instead is that we’ll likely see a number of the senior starters go 60 minutes against Vissel Kobe, supplemented with some youth teamers who will play a half each; with then a different set of senior players doing the same against the K-League All Stars side.
I’m all for more football; I just hope that the team don’t overdo it, with a litany of hamstring injuries last season and the sheer exhaustion we saw under Conte the year prior. I’m sure Ange knows what he’s doing.