Foreign break will make up for friendly problems

Jun 10 2007 By Neil Farrington, The Sunday Sun

Newcastle will head off on a foreign training break this summer to make up for an expected lack of pre-season friendlies.

Having been axed from the prestigious Amsterdam tournament, United have now seen an alternative plan to play in a similar event in South Africa fall through.

That leaves Newcastle with only two first-team friendlies - against Celtic and Hartlepool - arranged.

"South Africa has also fallen by the wayside," manager Sam Allardyce told the Sunday Sun.

"By the looks of it now, we're going to play all our pre-season games in this country.

"That means I will try to sort out a seven to 10-day conditioning break abroad, so that we can all come together and all get to know each other.

"Of course, a lot of the players know each other anyway, as do a lot of the staff.

"It's just a case of getting them to work the way I want us to work, and sort out the day to day things - stuff like the time we start training, how we train, what meetings do we have.

"It's also to start working with the players not just out on the training field, but also in the video analysis rooms, and start showing them some data that will help them understand a bit more about what we have to do to cover the marathon that we start on August 11."