Tenerife Diary: Day Four

Thursday, July 20th 2017

After a more relaxed day three in Tenerife, it was back to the hard graft on day four as the lads are put through two tough training sessions on the hottest day of the week so far.

The first of which, at 10am, is open to supporters. But before we get into the action, there is the small matter of a special edition tour quiz for the coaches to tackle.

For those of you familiar with Head2Head, in which the players test their knowledge across ten questions on ten different topics, it’s a spin-off of that.

Enter Lee Johnson, Dean Holden and Jamie McAllister for Head3Head to discover the brains behind the operation away from the training pitch.

All I’ll say is that it was very close. It’s up to you to watch and find out who wins – coming soon on BCTV!

After an hour and a half of training in which Johnson continues to hone his players’ “reaction to transition”, there is a chance for the City squad to mingle with the 50 or so supporters in attendance.

Then it’s time for the boss to sit down for an enlightening Q&A that lasts the best part of an hour. Topics range from ins and outs and talking tactics to last season and how Johnson keeps his cool in the tough times.

Head coach participates in Head3Head — Head coach submits his Head3Head answers

Staff and players enjoy a team meal at La Vieja restaurant

Marlon Pack poses for a photo with a City supporter

By now it’s time for lunch, after which we target more players for the popular ‘Who Am I?’ tour feature.

Jens Hegeler and Hordur Magnusson guess their City team-mates before Aaron Wilbraham and Frank Fielding try their luck at identifying TV and film stars.

At 4pm the lads make the short walk across the road to the Crossfit gym for some more power exercises including box jumps, chin ups, weightlifting and the lost art of launching medicine balls as far as you can. It actually looks quite fun.

This acts as a warm-up for another long session on the training pitch – less physical this time with more of a tactical slant on patterns of play.

To break up the routine of eating at the hotel, we then embark on a ten-minute walk to the beautiful La Vieja restaurant for a meal.

The food is fantastic – starters galore followed by sirloin steak or seabass and chocolate coolant for dessert. It’s nice to get away from the hotel and training complex to enjoy a more relaxed vibe, but it’s all very controlled and the players are back at the hotel by 10.30pm.

Day five promises to be more of the same with two more training sessions ahead of City’s practice match with Atletico Unión Güímar of the Spanish third tier on Saturday.