The Everton players appear to be enjoying new manager Marco Silva’s approach during preseason. The Blues are currently in Irdning up in the Austrian Alps for a weeklong training camp, and the fans’ observation that the Portuguese manager is much more hands-on than either Ronald Koeman or Sam Allardyce before him was echoed by club captain Phil Jagielka.
Marco’s training style is a bit different than Ronald’s, eh? This is refreshing: pic.twitter.com/10lVaePEkM
— Royal Blue Pickford (@RBMersey) July 10, 2018
Speaking to evertonfc.com, Jagielka spoke about the work done so far -
“The training has been very good. All the members of staff have been really good, too, and have communicated their ideas very well.
“The manager has spoken to people about how he wants do things and everyone is feeling excited.
“He’s had the footballs out and has been getting his ideas across as quickly as possible. The players have been working hard and we’ve been taken on board some established ideas and some more unique ones, too.
“We’ve done proper possession work, five-a-sides, attack v defence and we’ve worked on shape.
“The boss has been giving attackers ideas of what they want - whether it be offensive or defensive - and then working with us defenders on shape, where he wants people to be - how high up the pitch and when to drop off. He’s putting his ideas across early on.”
The Blues looked lost for long periods during the first dozen games or so in the early going last season with a number of new faces in the squad, so it’ll be interesting to see if with fewer changes to the senior side this summer Everton can get off to a better start.
Watch a short part of an 11-v-11 game to end yesterday’s training session here -
Live from Everton's pre-season training camp!An 11-v-11 game to finish off this evening’s training session in Austria…
Posted by Everton Football Club on Tuesday, July 10, 2018
(If you’re reading this on a news aggregator and the video above is not showing, click through to the website here)
“It’s a great setting, there are great facilities around here. It helps out massively. It’s good to get the lads back together again and ready for a long and, hopefully, successful season.
“The squad is looking strong, there’s quite a few young lads as well who are pushing for places in the squad so it’s nice healthy competition. It’s good to get the lads together because they’re all working really hard on the pitch. Everybody’s trying to impress.
“Obviously we all eat together and stay together during the camp. It’s nice to get back to the hotel and have a bit of relaxation as well and be with friends.
“But, of course, everybody’s concentrating on putting their best foot forward regards to getting themselves in the squad and then trying to get in the team for the first game of the season.”