As Premier League players return for pre-season training, talkSPORT host Gabby Agbonlahor has bleep test flashbacks. Here, he relives some horror sessions…
“Pre-season was traumatic. I dreaded it because I knew I was coming back and it would be just running, blisters and more running.
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“You’d run in the morning session then have lunch. The older you get; you stiffen up and then you start at 2pm and run again. When you’ve stiffened up in recovery mode, you’ve got to run again. Your body is just in pain.
“I dreaded pre-season, honestly. We were like marathon runners by the end. I hated it – hated it.
“Remember the Tottenham players last summer? They looked like they were going to have heart attacks during their pre-season training in Asia. The running didn’t work for them anyway!
“You go away and sometimes the conditions are so hot and very dangerous. I remember Hong Kong and it was so hot and humid. It was dangerous. You had to change your top every 20 minutes because it was soaking. You were losing a lot of water.
“One person was sick. Ross McCormack threw up on Nathan Baker. He was sick on him while running.
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PRE-SEASON CLUBBING
“It’s not all bad. The best one I can remember was when we went to Marbella with Martin O’Neill – I think it was more for the coaching staff to be close to the perfect golf course!
“We did one session in the morning and then we went to Ocean Beach Club for lunch and we had a little bit of a boogie and then had an afternoon session.
“That would never happen now – players go into the mountains of Austria and Germany – just out of the way where there’s no distractions. Places like that can feel like prison.
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“In Hong Kong, the manager told us we couldn’t go out. We had security by the lift in the hotel and we were like ‘come on’.
“It’d been a long tour and we just wanted to go out for one night, so we did. We walked straight past the security and let him make a note of our names [to tell the boss]. We were adults, we just wanted to go out for a bit, no problem. The gaffer wasn’t happy but he got over it!
FAMOUS FACES
“When we went on an American tour, we were in Portland and got a picture with Tom Hanks. He’s a Villa fan, isn’t he? Although he’s a Villa fan who never really comes to games that much. Actually, he came to one last season, to be fair to him. He’s a busy man who lives far away.
“I took a picture with him. That was a good one to get – a legend of the movie industry but he asked me what my name was! He’s a Villa fan and he doesn’t know the name of one of their best players?!
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HOW TO DO VEGAS
I saw the Wrexham players went there for a post-season break before starting pre-season training. I would have given them some tips on surviving. What you’ve got to do is not sleep. That’s the worst thing that you can do in Vegas.
“You’d go to a pool party and you’d be crawling out [after a few drinks] at maybe 6pm, but what people do wrong is that they try to have a nap from maybe 7 or 8pm until about 11pm. Except you don’t wake up.
“You’re jet-lagged, there’s oxygen into the hotels that keeps you awake, so when you do finally get to sleep you’ll just sleep through and miss the night. It has happened to many of my friends, so you’ve got to power through and stay awake.”
GABBY AT VILLA
PREMIER LEAGUE GAMES: 322
GOALS: 74
ASSISTS: 34
ENGLAND CAPS: 3
