After a week of pre-season training in Carrington City fly to Portland, Oregon tomorrow afternoon for the second stage in their summer programme. They will meet up with the Touré brothers and spend a week training at the Nike headquarters before playing Portland Timbers - a second tier side - on Saturday.
I think that the following day - Sunday 18th - the squad fly to New York where they will be met by England's brave heroes Gareth Barry, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joe Hart (who, to be fair, did nothing wrong.) They will contest the New York Football Challenge at Red Bull Arena (actually in New Jersey) with games against Sporting Lisbon and Hans Backe's New York Red Bulls on Friday (23rd) and Sunday (25th) evenings respectively.
There's two more games in the US: Club América in Atlanta on 28 July then Internazionale in Baltimore on 31 July. I imagine we'll fly back to Manchester on Sunday 1 August. Training at Carrington will restart on Monday 2 August, joined by the last World Cup leftovers: Carlos Tévez, Jérôme Boateng, David Silva and Nigel de Jong. (I don't know when Vladimir Weiss and Roque Santa Cruz will start training, I guess Weiss will join with the England players and Roque with the final four.)
Once back in Manchester we've got a friendly in Dortmund on the Wednesday night and then against Valencia at Eastlands on the Saturday. Then it's another free week before White Hart Lane the following Saturday lunchtime. So the whole programme is six weeks long and contains seven friendlies.
My question, though, is how likely the last four joiners are to be able to play our first game? Their first day of pre-season will be twelve days before we go to Spurs. I'm not a fitness expert, so am very keen to hear from anyone who is. Our chances of getting anything there are slim enough with Tévez, de Jong, Silva and Boateng on the pitch. Without them it does not look good at all. Keen to hear your opinions on this.
6 comments:
Hopefully will have a fit and raring to go Adebayor to lead the line against Spurs with Ireland in behind, Bellamy and Johnson either flank.
With a midfield cover of Barry and Yaya.
Not really all that a bad a starting line up is it even without carlos et al.....
Twelve days training and one of the friendlies sounds like enough after a 3-4 week break.
Yeah, with Adebayor, Johnson (A), Yaya, VK, Bellamy, Lescott and co we'll barely be able to muster a team...
Seriously Jack, you are a real depressive at times. Spurs are a good side and of course it won't be an easy game but we will go there with every chance of getting three points, never mind one.
You're not supporting a stuart pearce era team any more, you know - it's ok to make positive predictions once in a while.
And don't forget that if the players with only 12 days training are not fully fit we can always play Tevez for 60mins and then bring on Silva for 30mins....hmmmm..that's not too bad
I thought I read somewhere that Carlos would be joining the tour
I also thought I'd read that Tevez would be in the States at some point.. Quick trip up the coast.
Also when it comes to Silva, he's hardly had a tough tournament while keeping fit and match ready. All he'll need is a couple of weeks on a beach and he'll be raring to go. He's hardly going to come back looking like Jan Molby is he??
Also with Guidetti joining them, and if he has a good tour, he might knock on the door..? The tour is a good place for people to stake early claims...
Ade has apparently looked up for it in training and he is a big game player... and it is Spurs.
I reckon we've a good chance of getting some early revenge down there. They'll be more afraid of us come the start of the season. It's all set up nicely.
And don't forget that there'll probably be another couple of faces yet to join...
Come on!
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