MCFC training report 15/12/2011

Late start today at 12 so, as I was there for 11, I spent a while in the car reading while the rain lashed down. When I did go out, work was continuing on the fencing so Christmas might be the target date but for now the ladders still do the job. A full squad on view today bar Kolarov although Hargreaves was again working separately doing mostly running from what I saw. Rekik, Suarez and Razak being the younger ones involved again.

It was a longer overall session than for a while. Yesterday mostly fitness and stamina stuff maybe to counter the Monday night party. Today was a full mix of fitness routines,some football and quite a lot of tactical work. Early fitness routines were followed by Mancini taking a team in the middle pitch to spend time it seemed mostly on tactical stuff with plenty of emphasis as ever on positional play. The teams were changed a lot after a while so the messages got through to everyone.

Back out onto another pitch for some attack against defence and again Mancini switched the teams around. Never really bothered about goalscoring but seemingly more about moving the ball around and the player movement off the ball to create the openings. Then it was back into the middle pitch for some more fitness routines before another session of attack against defence but this time on a full sized pitch. At different times Zaba and Nasri were working separately with coaches doing quite a bit of extra running.

Mancini was very involved in this last session of attack v defence, often stopping the flow to make a point and of course being able to show them what he was looking for with a pass or some movements. Then to finish there was a game and very quickly a quality goal from Edin, shooting under a last minute defensive lunge and across the keeper into the corner. All the goals today came from strikers with Edin getting 3, Aguero one where he burst through two challenges with the ball still at his feet, and one from Mario a typical curler into the top corner from 20 yards. With the game just about to end there was minor flare up between two players which was something and nothing but sadly photographers were on hand and no doubt their pictures will be blown out of proportion as usual.