Oxford United’s First Team squad were reunited today as they reported back for the first day of pre-season testing.
Karl Robinson’s squad were divided into five groups to enable covid testing to take place in small groups when players arrived throughout the morning.
Once each group was cleared they were kitted out in their smart new Chaokoh training kit before gym tests and then a warm up and a series of runs under the watchful eyes of Director of Performance Chris Neville and Head of Sports Science Harry Routledge.
The first group featured new pros Tyler Goodrham and Leon Chambers Parillon plus Michael Elechi who has agreed an extension of his contract while the next group featured Sean Clare and Joel Cooper who are back with the U’s after spending the second half of last season out on loan.
A third group featured Sam Long, and Marcus McGuane, with John Mousinho in a later group: all three being eased in to pre-season after injury
“It was good to see them out there and they did well” Karl Robinson told us. “There is a difference between feeling fit and being ready for a full pre-season so we will look at those three in particular, see how the data looks and then we will see how their workload needs to be managed over the next few weeks
“With Sean and Joel the slate is wiped clean and they have the chance to show what they can do. There was a real buzz today and everyone was really happy to be back out there. They will work extremely hard over the next few weeks but we started the right way today.”
See Karl’s thoughts on new signings Billy Bodin and Ryan Williams in iFollow now