Carlos Corberán has stated how impressed he and his coaching staff have been by the players’ mentality to work hard and take on new information so far in pre-season.
The boss, who was speaking to WBA TV from Albion’s training base at St. George’s Park, has had his senior squad together for more than three weeks now following the summer break.
Corberán and the club’s coaches have delivered a mixture of sessions during that time, initially focusing on physical conditioning drills before slowly transitioning into work technical and tactical work.
And the Spaniard believes being at the home of the England national teams this week has helped his side take a big stride forward in terms of their preparation for the new Sky Bet Championship campaign which kicks off on Saturday, August 5.
Carlos said: “It’s a pleasure to be here at St. George’s Park.
“We’re using some of the best facilities, not only in England, but also in the world in my opinion. The pitches, the gym, the quality of the hotel. It’s all exceptional. All of those reasons are exactly why we wanted to come here.
“The team is progressing very well in terms of the work they are doing. They are getting plenty of training in and so far we haven’t picked up any injuries which is really positive news.
“I want every single player to be able to complete every single possible training session.
“I think we’re already seeing the benefits of training here at St. George’s Park. The hotel and the training pitches are right next to each other which means the players can train for longer and then get the required rest in too.
“If you can increase the rest, you are increasing the quality of the job that you can complete in training.
“Before we go to next week which is a week with lots of friendly games for us, we are using this week to focus on the development and the identity of the team.
“You always need to work with a balance in mind. We’re still in pre-season, so the impact of the physical condition is massive.
Surveying pre-season. 🙌@CarlosCorberan | #WBA pic.twitter.com/427VzC1jUY
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) July 12, 2023
“We need to keep working on our physical condition, but at the same time, the players can do more football-related work in training.
“They’re capable now of doing everything necessary in a football game. We’ve been working on our technical skills from the very start because it’s a very important part for us because we want to be a very dominant team.
“We’re working on our tactics because football is a collective sport and the whole team needs to coordinate together in the same way.
“We also need to help the team keep progressing physically because the better physical condition we are in, the risk of injuries goes down. The fitter we are, the better-equipped we’ll be to meet the demands of football and perform well.
“The players are receiving new information really well and they are all working really hard to make sure they understand what we are asking of them.
“It’s true, the new ideas that we have depend on the players that we are going to have in the squad.
“On the pitch we want to be a solid team, we want to be an aggressive team, we want to be a dominant team and we want to be aggressive in the final third. I want my team to play with a lot of personality and be brave in the right situations. The players need to represent these values. The mentality of the players has been exceptional during pre-season.
“It’s very positive to see that your players have the focus and the concentration when trying to take on new ideas.”
The Baggies head back to their own training base on Friday afternoon and welcome Shrewsbury Town to HQ for a behind-closed-doors match on Saturday afternoon.
Corberán’s men then travel to Cheltenham Town on Tuesday night, Salford City on Wednesday night and Burton Albion on Saturday, July 22 for further practise games.
And the boss says friendlies are a great opportunity to evaluate a number of aspects before the competitive clashes come around.
“The transition from training to the friendly games to the Championship games is very important.
“The friendly games help with the transition. They help because they allow you the chance to head into competitive matches in a positive condition to compete as best as you can.
“You can evaluate many things in friendly matches too, such as how the players are, how they are working and if they are working in the way that you want them to work, which players are and which players aren’t adapting to the ideas and which aspects we need to spend more time working on.
“The friendly matches help us evaluate individuals and the team, so they are very important.”
