homer
Well-Known Member
Manager Speaks
Posted on: Fri 06 Jul 2007
Good afternoon everyone.
By now you would have heard that Shaun Newton has returned to the Walkers Stadium after his loan spell here towards the end of last season.
I have watched the DVDs of his games and in some matches he played well and in others not so well. But I had a chat with him and told him that I'd give him a one-year contract, that's it - take it or leave it.
As I said in some of those nine games last season he played really well and I'm expecting and hoping, as all the Leicester City supporters are, that he has that consistency in his level of performance - and he can do it.
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He's a right-sided player who has pace and I think he will be a good asset.
But he will be working for a longer contract because one year contracts for professional footballers are not great. You always want longer than that but I wasn't prepared to budge.
So he's got to impress me and do well for himself to earn himself something better and if he helps get us promoted then he'll get well-rewarded. That's the bottom line.
It has been a great first week back and we had an awesome morning at the training ground today because we had a World Cup competition with France, Bulgaria, Australia and England taking part.
It was a round-robin tournament - it takes you back to the old schoolboy days.
I suppose in your quiet moments when you are driving in your car you wonder if some of those games you do like to play would work with top footballers, internationals who have earned a lot of money.
The prize for the winning team was a Mars Bar each. I'm sure you'd say 'Crikey', how would that motivate and stimulate professional footballers who earn good money and play in front of big crowds.
But when I showed them the Mars Bars this morning for the winning team, they reacted like little kids.
You do wonder as the manager whether your ideas and techniques would work but they were jumping for joy.
But then out of the orange plastic bag I pulled the 'man of the tournament' award which was a £3.99 summer barbecue utensil set. They loved it!
And at the end of the tournament which was won by Bulgaria, captained by Kishichev, by two points, Matty Fryatt, the man of the tournament, went home with a Mars Bar and the barbecue utensil set - it was the cheapest version!
But it was what it meant and that was what was important to me.
We also had another little competition going on at the training ground today.
They were all previously told that the last player to turn up at the training ground this morning would have to train with the youth team.
So we had players arriving at 8.15am because they didn't want to train with the youth team and they also knew that they'd be playing in the World Cup.
It turned out that there was a car-load of five, all of who were staying in a hotel, and the last player to get down through the car park, after some pushing and shoving like schoolboys, was Jonny Hayes.
He got shoved to the back but I also knew that the youth team weren't training here today; they were using a different venue.
So instead Jonny was made to sit on a seat on the side of the pitch on his own for 15 minutes like a little kid who had been naughty for not being on time or being early, while everybody trained.
All the players thought it was hilarious. But the message was 'get into training early, don't be last and do your stuff'. Hopefully that message might come out now.
Lastly all the players were told at the beginning of the week that we'd be training in the morning on Tuesday, morning and afternoon on Wednesday and Thursday and then in the morning only on Friday.
And then we'd all be in early on Saturday morning for a 9.30am start. So everyone knew that we would be training on Saturday. The only person who knew we wouldn't be training on Saturday morning was me.
So when training had finished today, we made the 'World Cup' presentations to the Bulgarian team and told the players that they had done terrifically well this week, and they have done.
It has been a hard week; two of the days were very tough. I told them that I'd see them all on Monday for a 10am start and not to be late. I then walked off.
And as I got 10-yards away I heard a big cheer as they all realised that they had got the weekend off.
I turned around again and looked them all in the eye and said: 'Make the most of this weekend because it's the last weekend you are going to get off for about 10 and a half months'.
So they've got a free weekend but I expect them to look after themselves, get some rest for next week when we start the proper work.
It's been a magical few days because my little tricks do work.
Take Care
Martin
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