|
" They are a good side and they are a good team at their level, so we got a taste of that again with a young side against Kendal on Thursday. This is our first pre-season friendly though, we did it as part of the Adam Collin situation. We are going to play two sides, one in each half and we have got everybody that we need to have games having a game, and there is a sprinkling of the youngsters in and amongst both experienced teams.
" This is the start of the competition for places, this is me saying that our season begins today, and you have got to put your case forward for starting the game against Brentford. So there will be no way that we will be taking it easy, I want the players to get their fitness, which is obviously key, but also to give us some ammunition in the individual cases for selection for Brentford.
" I don't know what my team is going to be because they are going to tell me what the team is going to be by the way that they all play. You have probably got a team that finished last season that starts off a little bit as favourites to continue that.
" I want to see questions from other players though to say to me that they think they should be part of that. That is what this game is about for some of the players that weren't starting the games on a regular basis last season. So it is an open plate now, they can all come in and put their own cases forward. Today I would like to see good fitness levels, no injuries and to see us score some goals.
" In the game at Kendal Tom (Aldred) had a very poor game, and that was one of the reasons why we couldn't go with inexperience at the end of last season, we needed all our experience. Tom has got to make a case for himself and in the first game he knows himself that he wasn't as good as he should be, and he is still behind the more experienced centre-halves that we have got.
" That doesn't mean that the door is shut, it is his first game, I am not going to make any judgements good or bad after one game. He knows though that there are areas of his game that he has to improve on if he is going to push himself for first-team selection.
" What we want to do in the week at Colchester is close the ranks, unite for a week, build up some camaraderie. We will train in the morning and afternoon every day and then finish with a game at Margate on Friday, so it is a great chance to assess the players, see how they bond together, how they live together for a week.
" We are in and out of each other's pockets, we are going to spend a hell of a lot of time on the training field doing different team shapes and different team plans and physical training. So the boys are looking forward to it, we always have a real good crack together and we work exceptionally hard on the field, and hopefully we will come back and we will know a little bit more about all the boys. "