Inadequate Pre Season? Again?

[Cobi Budge]

Three opening day defeats in a row, scoring two and conceding ten. Three games in which our opponents have looked sharper and far more cohesive. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our pre season schedules are inadequate. We need to stop the charity tours of the South West and start travelling further afield for some meaningful fixtures.

 

[Darrenpafc]

Three opening day defeats in a row, scoring two and conceding ten. Three games in which our opponents have looked sharper and far more cohesive. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our pre season schedules are inadequate. We need to stop the charity tours of the South West and start travelling further afield for some meaningful fixtures.

Absolutely correct. Our pre seasons are a joke. We never test ourselves against quality opposition!

 

[Argyleloyal]

Been mentioned on here a few times that teams don’t want to travel down this way and maybe we don’t want to travel far during pre season but I do agree that pre season isn’t right with the level of opposition we play

 

[Cobi Budge]

Been mentioned on here a few times that teams don’t want to travel down this way and maybe we don’t want to travel far during pre season but I do agree that pre season isn’t right with the level of opposition we play

Would Cheltenham say no if we offered to go there? What about Newport? Or Walsall? Or Swindon? Or Shrewsbury? Or considering we went to MK Dons a few seasons ago, what about Barnet or Crawley? Those sort of games would be far better tests than Parkway, Tavistock and Truro.

 

[Clare Spencer]

Maybe we do not have the financial means or can justify the financial outlay to travel past Bristol to play tougher opponents in Preseason friendlies
Maybe the club feel there would be no financial benefit to it

 

[Green Matt]

The friendlies probably didn't teach the coaching staff a great deal. On the evidence we have so far, Bristol City are well off the pace. Excreta are what they are. The rest of the friendly opposition were just happy to be there.

Speculation on my part, but are they still doing something wrong with regards to training? Mackenzie, Issaka, Baidoo out injured already. Seems crazy to me that we're starting the second season in a row with a busy medical room. Hopefully we don't get another few joining the aforementioned on the sidelines.

 

[BromleyArgyle]

Maybe we do not have the financial means or can justify the financial outlay to travel past Bristol to play tougher opponents in Preseason friendlies
Maybe the club feel there would be no financial benefit to it

Perhaps the club might realise there is no financial benefit in finding themselves bottom of Division Three after one game and after a very poor performance. Based on today, and even allowing for Conor Hazard in the Wycombe goal, do we honestly think we are going to do a Stockport up there next week?

 

[Argyleloyal]

Would Cheltenham say no if we offered to go there? What about Newport? Or Walsall? Or Swindon? Or Shrewsbury? Or considering we went to MK Dons a few seasons ago, what about Barnet or Crawley? Those sort of games would be far better tests than Parkway, Tavistock and Truro.

Like I said in my original reply, maybe we don’t want to travel far either. It is crazy though and it seems Exeter has a problem also in pre season games

 

[Tugboat]

Arrogance

 

[monkeywrench]

Completely agree with the OP. We're so undercooked. As usual Cleverley also said in a recent interview he would have liked another game against higher quality opposition.

 

[Green guile]

Agree with Cobi's initial post. We can all see it. Rather than a trip to Spain, maybe we need to base part of our pre-season in the Midlands or the North West and look to play 3/4 games v decent opposition away from home.

Alternatively, maybe we need to look to put together a pre-season package for visiting teams that allows use of our training facilities (Harpers, Foulston), whilst teaming up with accommodation/leisure providers such as St Mellion and/or China Fleet and offers some pre-season games at HP. Perhaps if this was carefully thought out we might tempt some decent opposition to the SW?

 

[Argyleloyal]

Alternatively, maybe we need to look to put together a pre-season package for visiting teams that allows use of our training facilities (Harpers, Foulston),

If they use Harpers, where are we meant to train? In the past Paul said that the mens may well use Foulston to train, but yesterday at the fans forum nothing was said about that

In the past Paul said the mens may well use Foulston but yesterday at the fans forum there eas nothing said about that

 

[Lobster]

The decline of football in the South West hasn’t helped us. Apart from Bristol City, we have:

• Exeter, Rovers and Swindon in L2
• FGR and Yeovil in NL
• Truro, Torquay and WSM in NLS
• Bath, Parkway and others below that

A number of those have been at higher levels in recent memory. We’d likely be better off doing the ground work in Plymouth and then travelling away somewhere for a few matches and doing the team building then.

 

[PL2 3DQ]

Most teams used the Carabao Cup as a next level pre-season game because it was unusually the first game of the season, unfortunately for us we drew Exeter which made sure we had to be 'on it'.

More thought needs to go into our pre-season preparations.

 

[Dalton Is God]

Like I said in my original reply, maybe we don’t want to travel far either. It is crazy though and it seems Exeter has a problem also in pre season games

It’s likely to do with the costs involved if we travel too far afield (hotel stays etc).

I don’t see why we can’t play Exeter, Bristol Rovers or Swindon in a pre-season friendly. We play Torquay and Truro enough and those teams are at a slightly higher level. Maybe there’s a sense of helping out our local teams with gate money.