Ian Henderson has hailed Dale’s week-long pre-season camp in Tenerife as the “best” one he’s been involved in since his arrival at the club back in 2013.
Speaking on the last day of the trip, he summed up his thoughts on a successful week at the T3.
“In a nutshell, it has been the best pre-season camp during my time at Rochdale Football Club,” said Hendo.
“The reason being is that the quality has been the highest it has been, and that’s thanks to the new signings that have come in – the likes of David Perkins and Aaron Wilbraham. The young lads are bringing unbelievable quality, too, as well as all the other players, who are all playing their part in adding to the quality of training.
“Players are going to be tired and you’re going to see people grimacing during training, but afterwards, there have been smiles on faces because we’ve had the ball out since day one.
“We worked a lot on football fitness, which, for me, is the most important. You never see a footballer running 5,000 or 10,000 meters around a track. A lot of it is explosive work – you’ve got to be able to sprint in this game. You’ve got to consistently sprint, going from a standing start to your top speed as quickly as possible and be able to recover and go again, so we’ve worked on that physical element of football during pre-season.
“I’m leaving the camp feeling really positive. From a personal point of view, I’m in really, really good physical condition. And overall, it’s building on the building blocks from last year as a team. One thing that we did have last season was a collective spirit, and that has continued through to this pre-season. Now all we’ve got work on is winning games.”
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