Kyle ready for action

Kyle Naughton is looking forward to putting Mauricio Pochettino’s instructions into practise for the first time on our pre-season tour.

Saturday’s outing against MLS side Seattle Sounders marks Mauricio’s first game in charge following his appointment earlier this summer, with further matches against Toronto FC in Canada and Chicago Fire to come next week as part of our tour of the USA and Canada.

After taking on board some of the philosophies of our new Head Coach since returning to pre-season training last week, full-back Kyle says he’s champing at the bit to get out onto the pitch and get back into action.

“When you get a new manager you can’t really get used to playing his style unless it’s in a realistic game situation, so that will be one of the main things to get out of the tour,” said the 25-year-old, who was part of our trips to the States in 2010 and 2012.

“You can really put the style of play that he wants into practise and that’s obviously one of the main things the friendlies are about.

“Fitness is another big thing that you can get out of these games, and also team spirit.”

With temperatures across our three destination cities set to push 30 degrees, the humid weather conditions are sure to play a part in our matches over the coming days.

But Kyle believes the Open Training events we’ve planned ahead of each game will serve the lads well as they seek to get used to their surroundings on the other side of the Atlantic.

“It can be difficult to play in that kind of heat, but we’ll train for a few days to hopefully get used to it before we start with the games,” he added.

“We’ve been on a few pre-season tours to America before. The last ones were fun, so it should be good.”