Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Wolves plotting a perfect pre-season for Premier League push

The town of Irdning has a population of less than 3,000 and its fourth tier football team is of a Sunday League standard. The match represented a massive waste of time for new Blues manager Marco Silva and his team.

Pre-season has never been about results but it is about getting in the best shape possible for the opening day of the league. As the old adage goes: fail to prepare and you are preparing to fail.

This slapstick kickabout in Austria did neither club any favours.

Contrast it with the tour Everton’s opening day opponents Wolves have just completed in Switzerland. Everything about the week they spent in Europe was well planned and structured.

The surroundings were idyllic, with the club based in the picturesque town of Vevey on the shores of the beautiful Lake Geneva.

No expense was spared, with the team staying in five-star luxury on a hillside hotel affording magnificent views across the lake and to The Alps beyond.

It was accommodation befitting of their Premier League status but they were there to work. The training ground, a short drive away, was in another fantastic setting with a top quality pitch to work on.

And Nuno Espirito Santo certainly worked his players hard throughout the week, with double training sessions the norm.

The 10 o’clock morning starts were often followed with five o’clock evening sessions. These were long days but crucially there was sufficient rest and recovery time in the middle.

Spending time with the squad over a couple of days as part of a forthcoming feature on Soccer Saturday there was the chance to see their work close up.

The training sessions had all the hallmarks of Nuno and his coaching staff. There were the sharp training drills that focused on the mental fitness of the players as much as their physical state.

“We try to bring into our sessions a lot of cognitive work, a lot of sensory training as well,” explained fitness coach Antonio Dias. “We try to get new challenges, try to get them out of their comfort zone in some things.

"And also to work on their brains to start working faster with some tools and different types of games to get an extra edge on that.”

One of the traits of last season was the ability of the players to think on their feet in the big moments of tight games.

The victory at Middlesbrough stands out, but there was a freshness about the team in the final run in too, with the epic win against Cardiff followed by convincing performances against Derby, Birmingham and Bolton to secure the title.

Once the fitness drills were over there was the usual variety in the work with the ball.

It is easy to see how the players are so engaged with training when there are so many different facets to a 90-minute session.

The two games against Champions’ League opposition were well chosen.

The Swiss league starts this weekend so Wolves’ opponents were essentially up to speed for the forthcoming season.

This was a great gauge of where the players stood with one month to go until the Premier League begins. The results were not important but winning did no harm.

The second match, in particular, against Young Boys of Berne was a Nuno team performance. Wolves were able to soak up pressure when it came their way, but for the most part they controlled the game in the familiar formation that looks second nature to them now.

It was especially pleasing to see the impact of the front three Leo Bonatini, Ivan Cavaleiro and Helder Costa.

Bonatini’s ability to bring others into the game was in evidence as Cavaleiro and Costa enjoyed plenty of space. All three scored fine goals and Costa looks to have taken on board advice that may or may not have come his way.

His stock was not high when last season finished, with reports that the management was losing patience with his inconsistent performances. He appears to have come back after the summer having spent many hours in the gym and he looked sharper for it.

It was an impressive tour in other ways too.

The club’s communications department ensured that access to the players was available. There are a huge amount of media contractual obligations to fulfil for Premier League rights holders next season so it was a good way to prepare the players for what will be coming their way.

Even Willy Boly had a chat to this newspaper.

It was beneficial to be able to speak to players during their down time and also move away from the confines of the hotel.

Conor Coady afforded us most of one afternoon to jump in our hire car and head down for a walk and a chat by the lake. Coady is a fantastic ambassador and it makes such a difference when players and the media department go the extra mile to give us something different.

And let us not forget the fans in all this. We were only out there for the second game but to see hundreds of them enjoying a drink in the cafes and bars of Berne on Saturday lunchtime, many decked out in the new shirts, was a sight to behold.

The away end of the Neufeld Stadion – Young Boys’ reserve ground – was adorned with so many different Wolves flags it would have taken us all game to film them all.

If there is such a thing as a blueprint for a pre-season tour then this was it.