Getting The Minutes In - Coleman

Last updated : 25 July 2008 By Covsupport News Service
Coventry City manager Chris Coleman has said that he wants those players likely to be in the team to face Norwich City in a fortnight,to get the minutes in, in the three remaining friendlies.

Said Coleman to the CT: "I am quite happy with the players' physical fitness, although the guys need more minutes on the pitch and they will get that in the next three games, at least the team I have in mind to start against Norwich.

"Freddy joined us last week and we need to get him up to the levels of the rest of the guys because his are a bit down at the moment, but we will get there.

"And the important thing with Freddy is that we have got him through the door.

"He's a good quality player who gives us another dimension and we just have to get him up to scratch in terms of fitness. But all in all, I am happy with the way it has gone.

"With the pre-season the ground is very hard and training very intense and you get injuries and muscle tears, things like that, but touch wood, we haven't had any of them and long may that continue."

And Coleman is looking for his players to start showing a bit more quality in their play as they switch attention from fitness to form in the final three friendlies.

"Friendlies are very hard because it is obvious that the players want to win but the first two or three are used as fitness sessions and after that you can start bedding in tactics and formation," he said.

"The pre-season is there to get the players fit and up to match fitness, but now we will be working more on the tactical side of it.

"We will still be doing a bit of physical work and we had a really tough

day yesterday, but we will start to take that down a bit and concentrate on getting them up to scratch in terms of their awareness on the pitch and the tactical side of it.

"We will be looking for a lot of the guys to get 90 minutes if they can against Cambridge. You want the guys to get between 300-400 minutes on the pitch.

"Some of them are on 240 or 250, some of them are down because of injury or like Freddy because he has joined us late, so we have got to get them up to as close as 300 minutes as we can and surpass that.

"We want to be a little bit better tactically because they are a decent team Cambridge and have just beaten Everton 4-2, so we know it is going to be a tough game.

"I don't see the point in playing games we are going to win five or six nil and we are better off losing one or two nil because they get fitter quicker and push themselves more."

City travel to Cambridge United tomorrow before travelling to Scotland and taking on Livingston on Tuesday and Kilmarnock next Saturday.