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Pre-season friendlies

fred binneys head

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You don't think that being beaten by teams who are several tiers below you has any impact on players confidence?
No I don't. We'll have to disagree on that one.
 

Red Bill

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It may affect the youngsters a little but I think the older hands know it means nothing. That was certainly the view of a player who was a guest at a GWG meeting a few years ago (won't mention who as I don't want to get people's pulses up:x) who said he'd had pre seasons where he'd won every game but gone on to have a terrible season and others where the exact opposite was true.
 

IndoMike

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Bill : it does depend a little bit on the opposition, too. And don't forget, it's pre-season for the other team, too. These are mitigating arguments for those who think the results of PSF are important. However, as I have stated earlier in this thread, overall I wouldn't panic if we didn't win these games.
 

Colesman Ballz

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The biggest problem I see is lack of match fitness. There is no way that the eleven players starting against Cambridge will all have a full ninety minutes under their belts, unless they play together at Dorchester. This just seems plain crazy ! (facepalm)
 

denzel

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It may affect the youngsters a little but I think the older hands know it means nothing. That was certainly the view of a player who was a guest at a GWG meeting a few years ago (won't mention who as I don't want to get people's pulses up:x) who said he'd had pre seasons where he'd won every game but gone on to have a terrible season and others where the exact opposite was true.
So why are we the only league side not playing other league sides this pre season? I would at least have hoped to play a conference side, rather than teams two and three levels below.
 

eurogrecian

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I've never taken pre-season friendlies too seriously (except the trip to Brazil!), but I must confess that even I was a bit concerned by City's 2017/18 PSF schedule, both in terms of quantity of games and quality of the opposition. What to make of that concern now that we have started like a house on fire?
Last season we won every single PSF, but were still bottom of the league by November!

Premiersh*t teams now tour China and the US, rather than Devon & Cornwall and even modest Championship clubs seem to go on foreign tours pre-season, so the days of a glam home PSFs for City seem over. Maybe they were not much use anyway - except for on the revenue side?

Whatever, this season's PSFs, modest as they were, seem to have been more than enough to get the team fully ready for the League 2 campaign.
 

Sexton Blake

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Have to agree although they are not by any means a pointless excercise. Their main purpose really has to be simply to experiment build up the the players fitness and give them playing time in readiness for the season itself and above all as much as possible to avoid taking any risks which might result in serious pre season injuries.
 

Pete Martin (CTID)

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Playing 'big' clubs in pre season friendlies used to be commonplace in the lower leagues. Those days are gone. I do miss them to a degree, but I think it's quite good that we are rocking up as the 'big' club ourselves at non league grounds as it's something different for them and their supporters (and helps their meagre bank balances) and evidence so far seems to suggest that it makes not one jot of difference to our preparedness for a new season.
 
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