It looked to me as if the players played those games to get themselves in shape more than giving it their best to win games, whereas a lot of our opponents seemed to give more to winning those games.
That's a potentially key point, too. We've scalped some great teams in pre-season. It's easy to forget that we're the scalp, now. Just look at the obscene, 80s Wimbledon style tactics we've faced in some games...friendlies, ffs! Teams are desperate to make some kind of mark by beating us, we're desperate to get ourselves in some sort of shape in very limited time before the season.
This point was made on Tomkins Times, and the person who made it also said they were looking forward to the Charity shield. Why? Because there the situation might just be reversed, in that it's a game our players actually will be arsed to win. Of course, it's a glorified friendly, but it's also a chance to get one over on City, to just lay a little marker of our own that says 'we aren't scared of you. In fact, you should be scared of us.'
I don't think preseason should be written off as some do - there does seem to be a degree of correlation between preseason performance and real season performance - but there are mitigating circumstances. I'll certainly be a lot less worried if, come that City game, we look fit, competitive and cohesive.
But I do expect the first quarter/third of the season to be a hard slog, and I'll be fucking delighted if we can end that spell level or better with the summit.
