Koeman’s comments as Everton resume training

New Everton manager Ronald Koeman has spoken on the first day of pre-season training for Everton, which began earlier today. The players were originally scheduled to return on Thursday, with the second string reporting back last Thursday, but Koeman advanced the date to today, asking all players not involved in the European Championships to report to Finch Farm this morning instead.

“I’m very much looking forward to getting down to work.

“I’m extremely full of energy after a long summer and the players have had a lot of holidays as well.

“That’s one of the reasons I decided to change the date for starting the pre-season because it was planned in for 7 July and we changed it to 4 July because I think the best pre-season is five or six weeks of planning.

“After a long holiday, the boys need to work and to get back fit to play football.”

He also spoke briefly about what players could expect from his pre-season regimen -

“With a new technical staff, we need to show them how we will work together.

“We will look at organising in the training sessions, we will have some good friendly matches and it’s all about preparing the team of the first Premier League game.

“In pre-season, you get time to know all the players, to know the young players and, okay, you have the training sessions, but around the training sessions you have time enough to have a coffee with them and to have a talk to them.

“Of course, they need to know the manager, they need to know the rest of the technical staff and we need to know the players, the characters of the players and that’s important. You get that time more in pre-season.”