Derby County's Assistant Head Coach Richie Barker says there’ll be little rest for the players as the Rams’ pre-season continues on Saturday at Sky Bet League One side Shrewsbury Town (3pm kick-off).
Paul Warne’s side are back working at Moor Farm Training Ground after returning from their week-long training camp in Spain last week.
Barker spoke to RamsTV to discuss the full-on nature of pre-season, a tough test against Salop and the challenges of the transfer market.On the relentlessness of pre-season…
It is relentless. The players have pretty much had two days off in the last three weeks. It's pretty tough when you play on a Wednesday evening and come in the next day and you're doing some running.
Even the lads who only played 20 minutes at Chesterfield on Wednesday, you're still a little bit stiff because you've only had 12 hours of rest. It's about the bigger picture. It's about ensuring that further down the line, we've got all the yards in that we need. There is not a lot of rest at the minute.
On taking the positives from Wednesday night’s friendly at Chesterfield despite a 4-0 loss…
We got 70 minutes out of 11 players, which is about progressing them. We had a look at a couple of new things that we'd been talking about in terms of some in-possession stuff, and we got no major injuries. Sonny Bradley's hamstring was a little bit tight, hence why he came off at half-time. He's hoping to be back in the next couple of days. The result was disappointing, but in the bigger picture of the minutes, we were pleased with that.
On David Ozoh getting his first minutes and settling in since signing…
It won't be something that happens overnight in terms of him getting up to speed. In terms of working with us, he's about three weeks behind. I would imagine he still probably doesn't even know most of the players' names, which can be pretty difficult. It sounds like a fairly simple thing, but at some point he's going to play with two or three different midfielders. He's got to get to know them, he's got to get to know what their strengths and weaknesses are.
It will take him a while. The first thing we've got to get is minutes under his belt. He's got to get a better understanding but as a 19-year-old, to come in literally the day before the game at Chesterfield, turn up and play a part in a squad is pretty impressive.
On wanting to get players in through the door before the season…
It's becoming progressively harder every year. Ten years ago, you would turn up on the first day of pre-season and whoever was going to be signed was normally signed. It it isn't like that anymore. Clubs are obviously holding on to players a little bit longer because of major tournaments and stuff, while players are a little bit braver in terms of waiting.
We've pretty much got used to the fact that we don't have, on the first day of pre-season, the squad we want. The sooner we get that organised, the better. Then it is about keep trying to drip-feed key information in. Unfortunately for lads like David, he's a couple of weeks behind. It's up to us now to try and speed it up.
On the coaching staff’s role in transfers…
We all have different connections all over the place, whether that is with different football clubs, different agents, different players who suddenly then let us know that someone's available at their club or whatever it is. We're just fielding calls constantly and discussing people constantly. It's never-ending.
On Saturday’s friendly against Shrewsbury…
It's going to be a good test for us because we'll make loads of changes and make sure that everybody gets some more minutes again.
There'll be a couple of 45 minutes either way, but we're trying to get 70 minutes into quite a few of the lads again so that we can then move on from a tactical point of view next week when we've ticked that sort of physical box.
There were a couple of people a bit stiff on Thursday, so we have to just be aware of playing on a Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon when you've done training in between. It's not easy. In the Championship, sometimes you get games on a Wednesday evening, so it's something we're going to have to get used to.
