Chairman Chris Dunphy has shared his thoughts on Dale’s pre-season trip to Tenerife…
It has been privilege to spend a week on the pre-season tour and to see the players develop. The amount of work they have done has been absolutely brilliant and I’m extremely proud.
I’m proud, not just of this week, but also the way that the club has progressed over the years and even since last year. There has been a great progression when you compare last year’s trip to this one, which is excellent.
When you talk about the pre-season camp, there’s a perception that it’s a jolly, but it’s not. It’s extremely hard work for the players and the back room staff, and I think they’ve all been fantastic.
As for the players, they’ve looked after themselves immaculately, as we would expect. And what is great, is that the new lads who have come into the team have settled in and mixed well. I think it’s important that when you put a team together you get on well and what I’ve seen this week is a good bunch of lads, who not only play good football, but are good people off the field as well.
Another thing that has come out of this week is that when you look around, you can see the quality of players, the quality of backroom staff and the quality of academy products - the club has a real bright future.
It’s going to be a tough season, it’s going to be a tough division, and first and foremost, we'd like to make sure that we're in League One for another season, but what I’ve seen this week is that Keith has built squad that is going to compete and compete very well, I’m confident of that. He’ll get the best out of them.