Pre-Season Preparation Quotes

A lot of people say two-a-days is the time to get them tough. It's over by then. You better not be getting tough in August. Our whole philosophy in August is to get ready for the first game. June and July are to get ready for August. Our whole goal in the middle of February is to develop toughness.

As football players, our bodies know exactly what time of year it is and what we need to be doing.

What I did at the start of each season, regardless if I was coming back as the champion, was run indoors and take forward steps from the first race.

The most special Slam is Wimbledon, of course. But where I feel the best is Melbourne. And you're happy that you're playing. When you get to the middle of the season, everything is week after week, and it's all routine. But when it's Melbourne in January, you are fresh and you want to play. It's nice.

When I was a player, it was important to target the first few friendlies and plant a seed in the mind of the gaffer.

You can learn a lot from Pep Guardiola. From pre-season to the match itself. He has a vision of the game that is impressive.

I had what Leicester gave me but then I worked with a guy around my house, a guy that my agent recommended. I worked with him for the three weeks solid, leading back into pre-season. We were just doing horrible running. Minging running! It wasn't pretty to be fair!

When I first joined Manchester City, I was not 100 per cent fit.

I was a bit worried coming back to the Premiership from America, but I have been pleased with my form, and the interest I have received has been good for my ego. I have no worries about my fitness, and I am really looking forward to the season starting now.

What you do in the off season determines what you do in the regular season.

The first game of the year is always an in-season adjustment game.

Individual records are nice to get, but before the season starts, you want to play to win the Stanley Cup!

In college, there never really was an offseason. The season would end, you'd get a week break, and then the hardest time of the year would start. Winter workouts in college were absolutely miserable.

You need good fitness from the players and the organisational structure has to be there from early on in pre-season because the games come so quickly that you don't have much time on the grass with the players to shuffle the pack tactically.

When I was at ESPN, I would say in April, 'We should be doing something on the NFL,' and they laughed at me.

The mind tells you that you should use the Europa League as your pre-season but you don't really because the players aren't silly, they know it's a real game.

You want to have a great pre-season, you want to play games.

Once our season finishes in November, a lot of players maybe take a couple of weeks off and start training for the next year. You often usually have only a little time to work on your game and stuff.

It really gets into your system. All baseball players have this internal clock around February when it starts to kick in and the juices start to flow. I think underestimated how much I was going to miss it.

You never reach a point where you feel completely 'ready' - there's always more you can do. But I think every team and driver is going to be feeling uncertain going into the pre-season.

Some things that started in pre-season and then, you know what, the season gets started, you kind of forget about it and then move on to football, and it's strictly football until the season finishes.