Woodley United manager Jamie Williams is expecting the talent of his side to push the club up the table as they prepare for a brand new season in Hellenic League Division One East.
The Kestrels struggled in a competitive division in the 2019/20 season, but had some more positive moments since Williams joined as manager in December as they climbed out of the relegation places to finish in 15th before the season was ended prematurely.
It’s felt like a normal pre-season for us in terms of what we are doing with the players,” said Williams after his side returned to competitive training.
“Our biggest challenge has been trying to find pitches to play pre-season matches on as a lot of places are reluctant to open their grounds and there has been talking of having to disinfect corner flags and goal posts and not being able to use dressing rooms, so it’s been fairly complicated.
“The FA announced that clubs could play competitive football again and then there was rush with every club wanting to arrange friendly games.
“But the biggest problem has been finding venues. We played Binfield, but had to play the game in Chertsey.
The Kestrels had returned to training under social distancing guidelines but have now been able to add some new faces to the squad after the FA guidelines allowed teams to return to competitive training.
“We’ve been training for three weeks. We trained under the social distancing rules which were difficult because there’s only so much you can do,” continued Williams.
“It’s difficult to try and work any patterns of play and we couldn’t invite any new players or trialists because of the risks.
“We’ve now been back training properly for the last week and now we can have a look at some new players.
“We’ve worked on fitness but we wanted to keep it to ball related fitness stuff.
“We wanted to keep it fun and also be mindful that a lot of the players hadn’t kicked a ball for three months so they were all desperate just to get back in touch with the ball again.
“Barney has done a really good job in coming up with sessions and keeping it interesting. We’ve been getting a lot of interest and have had to turn players away or had to hold them back because I didn’t want players that we didn’t know there to start off with.”
Williams is confident that he has enough talent and depth in his squad for the new season to fight further up the table having flirted with relegation for much of the 2019/20 campaign.
“I’ve kept the main core of the squad for next season which is exactly what I wanted to do.
“I’ve got a lot of belief in this group of players and I think in the past they’ve let themselves down a little bit.
“I’m more than happy to go again with what we have, so we don’t want too many new players because it’s already a good group.
“But we have had a few new faces and a couple of them will feature in the friendlies.”
The team are currently working towards a return date to league action on Saturday, september 5 when the Hellenic League is expected to start for the new season.
“We’re being told that the first week of September is the date we are working towards. That could change but the FA Vase is around the middle of September. Whether it gets moved back, it could do but we’re working towards the first week of September at the moment.
“I don’t want another season where we are struggling to stay in the league and I think that ability wise with the players that we have, we should be looking to be better than that.
“Squad size is always difficult, but I hate letting players down and not including them in the squad so I need to find the middle ground.
“Our squad size last season was good and I’m looking to add a couple more than that but not too many.”
