08-08-2025, 14:51
THE GAFFER
It’s that time again as the Sky Bet Championship season is coming back around, and Paul Heckingbottom and his players can’t wait to get started.
It’s been a busy six weeks of pre-season, with competitive friendlies played, hard graft on the training pitch, and team-building activities away from it – all working towards 9th August, when PNE take on Queens Park Rangers.
Hecky said: “I’m glad it's here. As far as pre-seasons go, I enjoyed this one, but it's not like the real thing. All of a sudden you turn up Monday morning this week and you're building towards a proper game, so I'm glad it’s here.
“I think the players are ready. We've worked hard. I think we've been ready in terms of fitness-wise for a couple of weeks now. The lads have worked really hard on the grass, in the gym, in the pre-season games, so I think they're looking forward to a competitive game as well.
“Everyone's ready for that feeling again in games. It is different again like six games in, if you've played all six you feel in the flow – really, really good. In terms of the fitness and wanting that competitive edge again, everyone's champing at the bit for it, definitely.”
It’s more than three months on from the final day of the 2024/25 season and there’s been a lot of change since.
Nine new faces have joined North End and many of them will be hoping to make their Lilywhites bow on matchday one in the capital. They’ve integrated seamlessly behind the scenes, so the hope is that will be reflected on the pitch.
Hecky said: “We've been able to work with those boys and get them to understand what we expect of them and their role in the team, so that's been good.
“We needed the bodies because there's been a big turnaround this summer. As excited as I am by that, I know that brings its own problems, the bedding-in things like that.
“Once you're under pressure, once you're actually really tested in the competition that you're playing in, that's only really when you begin to understand, ‘Yeah, we still need to work on that,’ or ‘He still needs a bit more help with this’. So yeah, that's the bit I'm looking forward to from them on Saturday.”
There’s always an element of the unknown when a new season begins and in the case of QPR the opening day of the campaign will be their first competitive match under the management of Julien Stéphan, who took over his first English role in the summer.
Hecky added: “There's been so many changes at the management level in the Championship. There always is, but this season seems more than ever, so that always changes things. New ideas, even managers that you know well who have maybe been out of the game and they have different ideas when they come back.
“It's exciting but the challenge of that is getting to understand what each team's trying to do as quickly as possible. The first two or three months of the Championship are mayhem for trying to get your head around that.
“You're trying to watch every minute of every game, whether it’s a live match on TV, getting out to games live, downloading the ones that you can't see live. But I feel like if you do that hard work and get on top of that early doors, there's not too many surprises as the season goes on.”
It’s that time again as the Sky Bet Championship season is coming back around, and Paul Heckingbottom and his players can’t wait to get started.
It’s been a busy six weeks of pre-season, with competitive friendlies played, hard graft on the training pitch, and team-building activities away from it – all working towards 9th August, when PNE take on Queens Park Rangers.
Hecky said: “I’m glad it's here. As far as pre-seasons go, I enjoyed this one, but it's not like the real thing. All of a sudden you turn up Monday morning this week and you're building towards a proper game, so I'm glad it’s here.
“I think the players are ready. We've worked hard. I think we've been ready in terms of fitness-wise for a couple of weeks now. The lads have worked really hard on the grass, in the gym, in the pre-season games, so I think they're looking forward to a competitive game as well.
“Everyone's ready for that feeling again in games. It is different again like six games in, if you've played all six you feel in the flow – really, really good. In terms of the fitness and wanting that competitive edge again, everyone's champing at the bit for it, definitely.”
It’s more than three months on from the final day of the 2024/25 season and there’s been a lot of change since.
Nine new faces have joined North End and many of them will be hoping to make their Lilywhites bow on matchday one in the capital. They’ve integrated seamlessly behind the scenes, so the hope is that will be reflected on the pitch.
Hecky said: “We've been able to work with those boys and get them to understand what we expect of them and their role in the team, so that's been good.
“We needed the bodies because there's been a big turnaround this summer. As excited as I am by that, I know that brings its own problems, the bedding-in things like that.
“Once you're under pressure, once you're actually really tested in the competition that you're playing in, that's only really when you begin to understand, ‘Yeah, we still need to work on that,’ or ‘He still needs a bit more help with this’. So yeah, that's the bit I'm looking forward to from them on Saturday.”
There’s always an element of the unknown when a new season begins and in the case of QPR the opening day of the campaign will be their first competitive match under the management of Julien Stéphan, who took over his first English role in the summer.
Hecky added: “There's been so many changes at the management level in the Championship. There always is, but this season seems more than ever, so that always changes things. New ideas, even managers that you know well who have maybe been out of the game and they have different ideas when they come back.
“It's exciting but the challenge of that is getting to understand what each team's trying to do as quickly as possible. The first two or three months of the Championship are mayhem for trying to get your head around that.
“You're trying to watch every minute of every game, whether it’s a live match on TV, getting out to games live, downloading the ones that you can't see live. But I feel like if you do that hard work and get on top of that early doors, there's not too many surprises as the season goes on.”
Why should a man go to work, if he has the health and strength to stay in bed?