MCFC training report 26/10/2012

It seems yonks since the last session I saw after holidays (great to watch the WBA game in the Mad Hatter pub in N York), injury and international breaks and I come after the Ajax game with the media deciding it's time to tell us all we are imploding with all sorts of fights and disagreements going on in the changing room. Total nonsense as we all know but I was interested to see how it was today.

Great to see John Guidetti already out when I arrived. Working one to one with a coach and the first time I have seen him outside this season. The rest filtered out slowly and it was clear we are still missing quite a few with injuries but from what I saw no new ones after Wednesday. The only scary thing for me was watching a guy climb a tree to get a high viewing point. I got dizzy looking up at him. Immediately they were all out Mancini took them to the middle pitch to do some tactical work with emphasis on zonal defence from corners.

I am one of those who isn't really anti this system as we have done ok with it overall but when it goes wrong like it did with the 2nd goal on Wednesday it looks really bad. The work today wasn't about slinging balls in and heading them away but it seemed to me reminding players what the role is once the ball is centered. i.e players have to attack it from their given positions once they know where it is going. Hopefully from now we will have another run where we don't concede from corners.

17 players out today plus keepers and Guidetti working with them rather than doing a full contact session which I assume he is not ready for yet. Included in the 17 were Scapuzzi, Kolo, Sinclair and Evans. They came over near the fencing to do keep ball circles and RM, DP were watching closely and in long discussion.

Maybe a slightly subdued session to start with but it developed and quickly got lively as it usually does before Carminati ended it and got the 1 and 2 touch passing games going. Plenty of this work using the small 5 a side goals and scorers were Kun, Mario, Barry before an audacious 45 yard effort from Kolo hit the bar. Quite a feat with 5 a side goals from that far. Best defender in this part was Mario who must have blocked 3 great efforts from Carlos.

A few short sharp exercise routines followed this before it was game time. It turned out to be only a 6 a side game as the main players from Wednesday went inside. Mancini made up the numbers. First goal was a Sinclair left footer and he went on to score 3. Milner hit the post with a screamer from 20 yards, Scapuzzi scored 2, Kolarov one, Mario a couple plus hitting both posts with one shot. Milner then got one, Mancini got another and Nasti smashed one in and hit the bar with another screamer.

All good stuff with Richard Wright in particular making some great saves, Tevez dropping deep to show good passing range and clever interplay with his one twos. No idea what the score was when it finished and I expected free kick practice but there wasn't any today for a change and that was it and just a shortish session.