Saville highlights importance of Luton Town's trip to Slovenia
Midfielder talks up squad bonding possibilities while abroad
New Luton signing George Saville believes that Town’s trip to Slovenia will be a crucial factor in building their team spirit ahead of the new League One campaign.
The Hatters headed out to their usual pre-season training camp at the weekend, as they will stay there until Saturday afternoon, flying home after taking on Slovenian Second League club NK Triglav Kranj in a friendly that kicks off at 11am (BST). For Saville, who was one of three additions announced prior to the trip, with another three being confirmed yesterday morning, Nahki Wells, Hakeem Odoffin and Nigel Lonwijk all arriving, he feels this is the time where firm relationships can be built for the season ahead.
Speaking exclusively to the Luton News, Saville said: “I like these trips, it’s a week away, team bonding, it’s important, especially when you’re new as well. You sit with lads and in a weird way you’re forced to talk as you’re with each other all the time, whereas when you’re at home, you’re going in, you’re training and then you’re getting off. So it’s really good to get the team bonding, get people together, I guess we’ll do a couple of bits out there off the pitch, so I’m looking forward to the week.”
Now out there and being put through their paces extensively, then for assistant boss Richard Thomas, it also represents a great chance for the coaching staff to also get their ideas over to the players, as he told the club’s official YouTube channel: “When you go on camp, it guarantees that you can get 20-plus sessions in in terms of gym, recovery, meetings, as well as grass time, so it creates a lot of contact time that you might not get when you’re back at the Brache. It’s a huge benefit to really get a lot of information in, a lot of physical work in as well, so there’s just a huge upside of being together on camp.
"Any time you go away together you’re going to get moments to create that, in a variety of ways. It might be a team building exercise, it might just be the meals together every evening, it’s that added time together. You can usually start to create that togetherness, that camaraderie and we can try and find ways to engineer that, but if it's organic it feels much nicer. Regardless of how you get there, it gives us the opportunity to create that, while we can also set some principles out and put some wheels in motion.”
Saville will be hoping to get his second run-out when the Hatters take to the field on Saturday after having the second 45 minutes of Saturday’s 3-0 victory over National League side Boreham Wood, coming on at the break to witness Lamine Fanne’s double add to Cauley Woodrow’s first half strike. The midfielder said: “It’s good, you can do as much training as you want, but there’s nothing better than just getting out on the grass, so 45 minutes and my first week, happy days.
“You can work on a lot of things and it’s important to do that sort of stuff on the training field, but for me there’s nothing better than going out on the grass and playing a game of footie. I just like the games coming thick and fast. We had 45 minutes’ work-out, so a couple of us just said, let’s get after it early doors, lets go and try and run all over them really. It worked quite well, we had a couple of good chances, some good goals, so a good work-out.”
Town chief Matt Bloomfield was also happy enough with what he witnessed from Saville and the rest of his squad who were in action, adding: “There’s plenty to work on which is always the best thing about these games. The result isn’t the be-all and end-all, it’s the build up to the start of the season. There were some bits that we’ve been working on coming out and there were also some bits that we’ve been working on that weren’t looking quite as we want. So it’s just a good opportunity for us to go away and assess, two different shapes, good fitness, I think it’s been a really good experience for us.
“There were some good performances. We wanted to mix the teams up, it wasn’t a first team and a second team, it was just giving everyone an opportunity to go and play. We wanted to see Zack (Nelson) and Lamine in those two 10s, Milli (Alli) as a wide left as opposed to when he was playing a wingback or a forward for us last year, so just trying to gather as much information as we’re moving forward. With the window as it is with incomings and outgoings, we need to prepare in both formations and I think that gave us a good opportunity to look at both.”