Richie Barker says he’s been impressed with the resilience of Derby County’s squad after enduring ‘really, really tough conditions’ at their warm-weather training camp in Alicante.
The team received a welcome boost on Wednesday after returning Ram, and fans’ favourite, Ebou Adams surprised them during a swimming pool session after signing on a permanent basis from Cardiff City for an undisclosed fee.
The Assistant Head Coach admitted the Rams’ latest signing instantly elevated the group, ahead of a squad bonding activity later in the day, where the newest additions to Paul Warne’s side got to know each other and the group in a competitive round of golf.
Barker spoke to RamsTV ahead of Friday’s friendly with Stockport County at the Pinatar Arena (10am UK kick-off) on the Spanish coast to discuss the mood in the camp, progress being made on the pitch and the importance of team building.
On Ebou Adams’ return to the Rams…
It has been like the worst-kept secret, really! Albeit it has not been as straightforward as some people may imagine. We are all pleased to have him on board and it was certainly one of the longest-running sagas that I've been involved with! It just shows that things are a little bit more complicated; the game's becoming a bit more complicated, but we've got there in the end.
As you can imagine - he doesn't like much limelight, Ebou, does he? So, he wasn't that bothered about sneaking in and surprising the squad! From our point of view, it's another good piece in the jigsaw.
It's somebody that we don't have to do the whole character reference with. We don't have to do loads of research on him because we him for a few months anyway, and we know he fits in with the group. Obviously, there are four new lads that he has never met before, so he's got to get to know them. It's always nice when you've had that ‘try before you buy’ sort of thing, because we know what he can and can't do. We know where he's going to fit in, but we also know what we're going to get from him as a person.
On the training camp so far…
The players have worked extremely hard in really, really tough conditions. I keep getting loads of messages from people back at home about the weather and I can only offer my apologies for moaning about it being too hot! But it has been pretty brutal for the squad.
It definitely adds an extra 15 to 20 per cent to the work ethic needed in the sessions and the lads have worked really hard. They've not moaned, they've just got on with it. There was a bit of fatigue on Tuesday night, in fairness, so hence a slightly easier day on Wednesday. We'll start ramping it back up again on Thursday with a double session and then into the game against Stockport on Friday. We will then have our last session is on Saturday before we come home.
On building team morale with a golfing session…
Especially with new players, it’s important. I think Ozzy (Ben Osborn) is walking around with a couple of the lads who have been at the club for a while. It's a good opportunity for them to get to know him. There is downtime for the lads who don't play, and obviously those playing golf have been using the buggies, so it's not just walking. Kenzo's played as well and that’s been a good opportunity for him to get to know people. It is good to have a little bit of competition; as we all know, they're competitive people so any kind of competition always goes down well.
On the shape of pre-season and getting ready for Friday’s friendly against Stockport County…
The minutes will start to change. The Matlock game was pretty obvious as we gave everyone about 45 minutes each. We got through that relatively safely. We then had the behind-closed-doors game here on Tuesday where some people played a little bit more. We'll then move that on again on Friday against Stockport where the minutes will start to go up; people will start playing with different partners across the pitch. While we're here, we can do as much experimenting as we want and try to get messages over.
We had a meeting today about some in-possession stuff, which we'll take into training sessions. We believe that will then start to be integrated into the game on Friday. We'll then re-evaluate that and then know roughly what we need to work on when we get home.
On the importance of physical and tactical improvement during pre-season…
Winning is a habit and it's a good habit. It's a habit we want to get into. It was a habit we had last year. But generally, at this precise moment, the scoreline doesn't really make any difference. It's about match minutes.
It's about the fact that they're playing with fatigue in their legs. We're experimenting on a few things, but also trying to adjust what we've worked on in training. Then we can actually have a look at if it worked, re-evaluate it and then tweak it for the sessions after. Generally, you could take the goals out of it. It's the physical bit and the tactical side that we're starting to look at.
