Although admitting pre-season is not his favourite time of year, Dan Bentley has been embracing Wolves’ warm weather training camp in Marbella and reveals the quality of training has been at a high level among the squad.
The searing heat which has greeted the Wolves first-team out in Spain, where temperatures have regularly risen over 30 degrees, have had an impact on the difficulty of the pre-season schedule, but the goalkeeper insists everyone is taking the conditions in their stride as the team prepares to get 2024/25 off to the best possible start when the new season arrives next month.
On getting up to speed in pre-season
“I’m not a great fan of pre-season – I much prefer when the real stuff starts and we’re doing the hustle and bustle of the Premier League season, but I understand that pre-season has its place and what it’s there for.
“I have to embrace it and I do to the best of my ability, but I’m not going to say I’m buzzing for double sessions every day, but I appreciate it has its usages, and we embrace it as much as possible, so come the first game of the season we are ready to go.
“It’s been tough, but it’s what pre-season is all about. It’s a hard graft and the weather just adds to the intensity of how difficult it becomes and how quickly you tire. It’s all about adaptation and recovering as quickly as possible and using the downtime that we have to make sure we’re resting well enough so we can go again for the following session.”
On training in the Spanish sun
“It was absolutely boiling out there today, next to no wind, and the humidity felt quite high. As a goalkeeper we have to protect ourselves with under armour and leggings to protect ourselves from burns on our body, because when you do end up with one, you can’t get rid of it until the end of pre-season when the pitches start to soften up a little bit.
“It’s a way of protecting ourselves but in turn you also retain more heat, and today was a hot one. The lads felt it today, but the quality in the session was still high. We got through what we needed to do and the game was really good quality, so it’s another good day and an afternoon to breathe a little bit.”
🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺 pic.twitter.com/a72hF3lsOb
— Wolves (@Wolves) July 12, 2024
On how pre-season differs for a goalkeeper
“For outfield players, there’s a lot of fitness involved, in terms of how long they can run and lasting a 90 minute game and building up to that point, where for us, it’s very short, sharp bursts which are relative to what we do in a game throughout the season.
“There is an element of fitness within it where we will do longer drills in terms of duration and effort, but it’s normally between one and three actions, which are really intense. Focusing on finishing off the actions well and make sure they’re clean, and then you get your rest while the next person works.
“Theirs are more slow twitch, with bursts every here and there, while ours are more very fast switch and powerful movements, to make sure we are ready to do whatever we need to when called upon.”
On supporting the younger keepers
“They’re doing well. Lewys [Benjamin] and Jimmy [Storer] have worked with us plenty of times before so we know what they are about. But me being the most senior keeper here, in terms of age and experience, with Sa having been at the Euros, the dynamic has been pretty much as is.
“We all try to push each other, we’re all trying to be as fit as we can, and there is a great camaraderie as well as we all want to help each other get better. As the most senior here, it’s up to me to set the standards, but everyone is pushing me and making sure that they’re doing the utmost as well.
“Kingy and Cuts will echo what I’m saying, and with Cuts as our leader, he doesn’t need to push us much because we push ourselves so much. For him, it’s more about guidance and making sure when he sees things, he coaches, but he doesn’t need to motivate us such because we are all so motivated and so hard working already.”
On penalty shootout victory
“We missed our first penalty, I can’t remember who it was, but Rayan came up to me thanking me, so it might have been him, but apologies to Rayan if it wasn’t him. But we missed our first one so I knew I had to pull something out the bag and thankfully I saved the last penalty which would have led to us losing if I’d not saved that, and then saved another one shortly after – but it’s always nice to win.
“There’s a healthy competition within the squad and today, 11 v 11, and the winners were my team – we won 1-0 – but it was a really tight game, both teams wanting to win, so there is a winning mentality here which is building, which we gained last season, and the more we can win the better.
“If losing hurts, then that’s a good habit to have because once you’ve had that feeling, it’s something you don’t want to reoccur very often. The more you can win, the better, and that’s the mentality that we want to drive.”
On improving as a squad
“We’re only a week into pre-season, and one of those was a travel day, so we’ve maybe only done eight or nine sessions, but from what I’ve seen, and where we are already, there’s been some really good stuff. There is stuff we need to work on, but there’s been some really good stuff.
“We’ve got a couple of new players who are still bedding in, we’ve still got three or four very good players to still come back into the squad and that will only enhance what we already have in terms of the quality as we go through the rest of pre-season.
“But it’s been really good quality, a really good edge to training, a really good mentality from everybody, everybody wants to work hard, everybody wants to win, and it’s all very good. Everyone is pushing each other which I’m sure the gaffer will tell you is music to his ears.”
