Still: We need to push the players to their limits
Will Still was keen to see his Southampton players “pushed to the limits” as Saints welcomed Valenciennes to Staplewood Campus for two 60-minute matches on Friday afternoon.
Cameron Archer extended his goal-a-game pre-season record as the first encounter ended 1-1, before Adam Armstrong struck the only goal of the second game, pouncing to put away the rebound after Ross Stewart’s shot came back off the post.
For Still, the exercise was about seeing his players cope with the demands of a hot day at the end of an intense training week, testing tired bodies and tired minds in a match environment.
“We’ve worked the players incredibly hard,” the manager said of a week in which Saints also played two games against Gillingham on Tuesday.
“The aim and objective of today was to get them playing minutes under serious fatigue, under quite a lot of stress – whether that be physical or mental – because we’ve trained all week and to do between 8 and 9k (kilometres) the day before a game isn’t something that they’re going to do very often, but we need to push them into those limits.
“We saw a few tired legs and a few tired decisions, and technical waste we’re probably not used to, but it’s normal and that’s what we wanted to create. It’s good. We’re pushing the players, they’re responding, and we keep moving forward.
“You get to know every aspect of them; how players react, if they stick together, if they shy off on their own little island.
“In week three that’s where we want to be and it’s what we wanted to do. The more the days go by the more we learn, the more we see and the more we improve on as well, because there are signs of improvement.”
Like against Gillingham, this was another day in which the competitiveness of the games were apparent, but Still welcomed the feistiness, believing it’s important his players build a togetherness and fighting spirit in preparation for the notoriously gruelling Championship schedule.
“That’s French football for you! I’m quite used to it,” he added. “It’s good. The Championship is going to be a fight, we’re going to have to use up all our experience and knowledge and togetherness to get through it.
“There are going to be moments when we have to fight – not literally – but we have to put in a proper shift. It’s good, it’s a bit of competitiveness, that’s what we want to see and that’s what we want to be, by staying within the limits that we have to stay in.”
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