Tenerife Diary: Day Three

Thursday, July 20th 2017

After a jam-packed day two there is more emphasis on rest and relaxation on the third instalment of City’s week-long training camp in Tenerife.

It follows a familiar pattern to begin with – an 8am meet for breakfast in preparation for training at 9.30am.

After the warm-up and some ball work, the players are split into two 11-a-side teams for a practice match.

The red team line-up as follows: Fielding; Pisano, Wright, Magnusson, Kelly; Brownhill, O’Neil, K.Smith, Golbourne; Engvall, Diédhiou.

Meanwhile, the bibs look like this: O’Leary; Moore, Flint, Hegeler, Bryan; Vyner, Morrell, Pack, Paterson; Reid, O’Dowda.

Place your bets now and I’ll go off on a tangent to leave you time to decide who wins.

In the meantime, we speak to Freddie Hinds in our latest exclusive interview for BCTV. The striker has been banging in goals for City’s Under-23s and taken that form into pre-season with the first team, scoring a quick-fire hat-trick in training on day two.

With Aaron Wilbraham, Matty Taylor and Milan Djuric still sidelined by injury, there is definitely an opportunity for the likes of Hinds and Engvall to force their way into Lee Johnson’s thinking ahead of the season opener against Barnsley in two and a half weeks’ time.

Made your mind up yet? I’ll tell you – the reds won 2-0. Scorers: Paterson with a low shot from 20 yards and Flint with a trademark header from a Paterson free kick.

After training it’s reward time for the players and staff, which means a quick turnaround before the coach arrives at the hotel for 11.30am.

Six staff – including Johnson and assistant head coaches Jamie McAllister and Dean Holden – have a round of golf, while the rest of us unwind by spending the afternoon at Siam Park waterpark.

That’s not the end of the fun. After dinner, our very own Adam Baker hosts his annual tour quiz night, which throws up its traditional helping of competition, comedy and controversy.

In the end, only after the realisation that Joe Bryan’s team have “accidentally” doctored their score, the quartet of Marlon Pack, Frank Fielding, Matty Taylor and Ben Parker are victorious.

It’s enough to secure a unique treble for Fielding, who also triumphed in the Beach Soccer tournament and virtual horse racing yesterday.

So three for Frankie and three lessons to be learned from a day full of team bonding: Jamie McAllister is the Rory McIlroy of the City coaching staff, Marlon Pack is still the brightest member of the playing squad, and never get caught in a game of “winner stays on” with Gary O’Neil on the pool table.

He’ll never lose.