Scott Arfield has had to endure attempts by John Hughes and Sean Dyche to break his spirits with their pre-season torture regimes. But he reckons Gio van Bronckhorst’s football-first policy will ensure Rangers are built to last this season.
The former Falkirk, Huddersfield and Burnley midfielder is gearing up for his 17th pre-season as a professional but admits the sessions put on by his Dutch coach don’t quite sting like the thigh-burners he faced at his previous clubs. The 33-year-old - who penned a new one year deal over the summer - said: “I was 17 when I did my first one. This is now my 17th pre-season.
“My first one was under Yogi. I was a young kid and he brought all the Under-19s up to the first team to do the running. I was just a young naive boy, running about like a rabbit with all the first-team boys telling me to calm down. I took pride in that, knowing I was fit.
“I’ve always tried to be as fit as I possibly could. Predominantly throughout my whole career I’ve always been one of the top three or top five.
"So pre-season, I’ve never really dreaded it as much as other players. I’ve always been quite good at pre-season. It’s a special time but as it goes on you see different aspects coming on.
"We’ve got a European coach here now and predominantly it’s all about the ball, being football fit. With British coaches like Yogi or Dyche down the road (at Burnley), he had a day where it was all about running and trying to break you mentally, which I loved. If I become a manager I’ll definitely put that into my style because you see a different side to the players when you put demands on them to run and to see if you can break them, because it’s a long season.”
Van Bronckhorst is putting his team through their paces at their Auchenhowie training base this week before flying out for a warm-weather camp in the Algarve on Monday. And Arfield reckons that trip to Portugal will allow Gers to finally get down to some serious work on van Bronckhorst’s tactical tweaks after the former Feyenoord’s hurried appointment following Steven Gerrard’s sudden exit last term.
Arfield told RTV: “As a player, the gaffer has been around the world so he’s cultured in his playing style and his management. I can only imagine how hard it is to come in half way through a season (as a manager). I know how hard it is as a player.
“He’s had to come in with his own staff, his own ideas. But pre-season is a time when you can implement that as you’re together for longer and have less games to prepare for, so you can prepare and get your ideas across. We’ve already done two days here. It’s all about positions, receiving the ball, different ways to get on the ball.
“So he’s already working on that style, which he couldn’t have done back in January as we had so many games to play. On top of that there’s been a few runs in there which have been heavy on the legs.
“It’s been brilliant to get back into the routine. Hopefully this will set us up for another successful season.”
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