Russell Martin has plenty of work to do with his Leicester City squad and will learn more about his players in pre-season
Leicester City manager Russell Martin accepts that mistakes are inevitable during pre-season, but wants his players to respond with resilience as they adapt to his methods. The Foxes continue their preparations for the new season this evening when they take on Bristol Rovers in the second of three fixtures within a week.
City defeated League Two side Northampton Town on Saturday thanks to goals from Stephy Mavididi, Riley Carr and Will Alves. They face Rovers this evening (7pm kick-off) and Burton Albion (1pm kick-off) before jetting off to Spain for a warm-weather training camp.
Players like Alves, Carr and Bade Aluko all received praise for their performances against Northampton, while Jake Evans, Sammy Braybrooke and Tom Wilson-Brown showed encouraging signs in their 45-minute display.
Tonight’s fixture, which will be played across four 30-minute periods, gives the players another opportunity to stake their claim for a spot in Martin’s strongest XI in League One this season. And the City boss has admitted that the pre-season schedule will present numerous challenges for his players to overcome and develop.
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“We’re going to face different challenges, different levels of team, also different approaches and game styles,” he told LeicestershireLive. “It’s going to be perfect for us.
“The pre-season has been really well planned, the games are really good and what we need to see will change because the learning will be different each game. There will be games where we feel we’ve got one bit and there will be games where the challenge will change.
“We just need to concentrate on what we’re doing, the process that we’re embarked on and we need to improve in every area. We need to make sure that the guys understand what they’re doing all the time.”
He added: “Games are the best way to learn about players. They brought to the pitch what we expected them to bring and I think that’s the best bit.
“Mistakes [are] fine, this early on in pre-season when they’re tired, there’s going to be lots of mistakes, there will be on Tuesday again, but their reaction to mistakes is the most important bit and they reacted to losing the ball brilliantly today.
“They hunted the ball, they ran back quickly and then wanted the ball again even after the mistake, we have to maintain that.”
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