Training tweaks as Bruno Lage prepares Wolves for friendlies

Once again, the Express & Star was exclusively invited to a training session at the club’s pre-season camp in Spain, as Bruno Lage and his team focus more on recovery.

The squad has been through difficult fitness and tactical sessions over the last week and with the friendlies starting today, yesterday morning’s session gave us a different insight into how the players are prepared.

Team-building exercises

Throughout the session, which was explicitly targeted at recovery, Wolves took advantage of the competitive nature within the squad.

Every player loves moving into small teams and competing against their team-mates and Wolves used this to keep them engaged and entertained while still instilling the right messages.

At first they competed against each other in different races where they had to pass the ball backwards in a single file line, while the person at the back raced to the front of the line.

The players enjoyed the battle for victory, but assistant coach Alex Silva kept advising them to think tactically and work together.

Following that they had some finishing drills in small nets where each team had a goals target to emerge victorious.

It seems so simple, but these fairly easy drills helped the squad camaraderie, kept them engaged and added a balance to the difficult sessions they have recently endured.

In addition, they still learned tactical and team-building values.

Lage’s advice

In our last training analysis we discussed how intense Lage is in training, and even in this session where he left his coaches to take charge, he did not switch off.

Nelson Semedo, who is continuing rehabilitation for a torn hamstring, came to watch his team-mates on the training field but found himself in a tactical meeting with Lage.

The head coach approached the player and spent upwards of 20 minutes speaking to him in Portuguese.

Although there was a language barrier for us listening in, Lage was clearly giving the defender advice as he began acting out positional and tactical instructions for Semedo to take up.

Lage never switches off and is obsessed with improving himself, his team and the individual players.

Semedo welcomed the advice as he fights for an expected return during August.

Individual programmes

Speaking of injuries, after the rest of the players finished Semedo was put through his paces by the physios with some running and ball work. He was moving freely and quickly changing direction, which is certainly a positive.

Toti Gomes joined him, having recently missed some sessions with a small niggle, but he was also involved with the rest of the team.

So too was Hwang Hee-chan, who then had an individual session with the physio which included some running and light ball work.

Finally, Adama Traore also made his return to training after flying to Barcelona for a scan on a hamstring injury. He arrived back at the Wolves camp on Monday evening and looked comfortable on the pitch as he was put through a series of drills, with and without the ball.

His injury is certainly not serious, as we await more news after his scan.