Derby County’s Matt Hamshaw says the coaching staff are ‘wanting to see character’ from the players at their training camp in Spain, which continued with a behind-closed-doors practice game against Portuguese side Académico de Viseu FC on Tuesday.
Hamshaw has stressed the importance of building the team’s character and fitness in the heat on foreign soil in a variety of ways, including hosting gruelling training sessions and making players muck in to the tidying up of the facilities.
Derby’s First Team Coach spoke to RamsTV to discuss the side’s progress at their Spanish training camp in Alicante as they get ready for the upcoming Sky Bet Championship season.
On the squad acclimatising and using the weather…
It has been good. Obviously, it’s a very uncomfortable environment, but that’s why we are out here. We came here last year; we know what the place is like and how tough it can be. But the sense of togetherness and the bringing everyone together that we spoke so often about last year which, when push comes to shove, is what we are looking at.
We have just played a game with some really pleasing bits in, and some bits that need a lot more work doing on them. But that is what you expect during pre-season; the lads had a tough day yesterday, where we really put them through it. We expected a bit of fatigue and we got that today, but that’s nothing new for us.
On managing the pre-season fixtures and training sessions…
We just plan and prepare so that everyone gets an allocated amount of minutes. We have had a few niggles, so not everyone could play today. We shifted things around, but the main aim at the moment is to get the lads as fit as we can, and out here try and not get injuries. Any injuries so far have just been from a little kick. We should have a few more bodies back on Friday. We are pleased with how the camp is going, there are a lot of elements we need to work on and absolutely nail down, but that is part of the process.
On the intensity of training…
Some of the new players can get frustrated early on because we just go for ‘fitness, fitness, fitness’, but we want to see their character. When they are absolutely on their knees, can people pick them up, and that’s what we are looking for at this moment of time. It’s what we are here for. We know it’s uncomfortable. It’s just important to see how they deal with it. Do they go into their shell? Do they encourage? Do they moan? We have had a whole range of scenarios, and it’s down to us as the coaching staff to say: ‘these are our standards, this is what we represent and we shall push on.’
On the behind-closed-doors friendly…
It was a really good workout, an 80-minute game, where we’ve got the minutes in. We are just pleased to come out of it with everyone unscathed and everyone has had game time. Players are now used to having people around their feet again, which might sound weird but it’s easy to train when you know the people pressing you (your own team-mates) aren’t going to kick you, whereas today people have got tighter to them and nearer to them. There’s a lot for us as coaches to work on and a lot more to put into the players.
On setting standards in the group…
We all represent the badge. We represent ourselves, we represent our families, but more importantly we are representing the club, and it is a big thing that we embed in our culture and something that we will carry on doing. Why should somebody else pick our rubbish up? I know it sounds common sense but obviously I’ve seen it where teams do leave the place in a mess, but that isn’t us and it isn’t who we are. But we are also here to do a job, get fitter and go back in a better mindset with things embedded that we can progress and fine tune.
At the minute we are a little bit of a way off, in terms of tactically. But that has been no different from the last eight or nine years, where it’s more about individual fitness and skills (in the season), things that you can’t do over the summer. The lads have come back in good shape so we just need to fine tune them athletically so we can run over teams.
