The young Gers returned from Prague early this week after a three-match competition to complete their final pre-season preparations, with David McCallum and his squad facing Aston Villa, MSK Zilina, and Viktoria Plzen.
The B team boss has now reflected on their three matches and again emphasised the way the squad will learn from each of their fixtures ahead of the new season.
He said: “The tournament was excellent for us. If you look at the early games that we played, it was a mixture of players at different stages of their journey. The group that competed in the Plzen tournament is the squad that’s closer to what the B team will consist of in the Lowland League campaign this season.
“Each of the three games that we played, we started strongly and had some challenges in the second half. The only difference was, in the second and third games throughout we were very ruthless and clinical in the attacking third. In the first game, we had numerous chances to put the game in a comfortable position, but we didn’t do that and ultimately in that game, MSK Zilina punished us in the second half.
“That’s going to happen in some fixtures, you’re not going to dominate the full duration of the game and that’ll give the opposition the opportunity to come back into it. We’ll certainly look at how we can manage the areas of the game where we can do better and when we’re not dominant in possession.”
With more minutes under the young Gers’ belts ahead of the league campaign commencing on Friday night, McCallum emphasised the importance to celebrate success from the overall tournament.
He added: “Charlie Lindsay won player of the tournament which he thoroughly deserved; he had some really strong performances in there. We’ve sat with Charlie in the last couple of years and spoke about his individual involvement in games, that was evident throughout the course of the competition.
“There were other good individual performances in there, some of the new lads really stepped up to the level we wanted which is great when they’ve only been with the squad for a short period of time. Our new signings, Zak Lovelace and Connor Young, have been with the lads for just over a week now and competing in the Plzen tournament was a great opportunity for them to integrate into the group.
“Pre-season is always an important period to implement what we’ve been learning on the training pitch at the training centre into games ahead of the new season, it was a great chance for them to showcase their capabilities in a competitive environment before the commencement of the Lowland League on Friday night.”
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