In a recent interview with the Southampton FC YouTube channel, Saints’ Executive Director of Football Les Reed talked about how the team’s pre-season plans are shaping up.
With a place in the Europa League group stages guaranteed, the club has the whole summer free and are not restricted by qualifiers as it was last season. With this in mind, Reed said:
We’ve penciled in a training camp early in pre-season, which will probably be a young squad with the players who don’t play in the Euro’s. That’s likely to be in the US – it’s not confirmed yet, but it would be a short, sharp trip, probably a week.
It is no surprise that there will likely be a pre-season trip to America due to the club recently signing a six-year kit deal with US firm Under Armour and Saints chairman Ralph Krueger expressing his desire to grow the club’s profile there.
A trip without Euro 2016 players would also provide a fantastic chance for fringe and academy players to demonstrate their value to the club and to possibly earn themselves a place in the starting line-up next season.
The former Charlton boss also said that a trip to Holland with the whole squad is expected. This was where the Saints had successful tour last summer; winning all their games there. Reed said that this would make planning easier as the club has done it before and knows the venue.
Wherever the Saints do go during pre-season, it will likely be interesting for fans to observe, with it looking as if we will have a strong squad and lots of competition for places.
