West Ham United Women’s Chadwell Heath training ground was full of noise on Wednesday afternoon as the first-team squad returned for the first day of pre-season.
Senior players who are not involved in the ongoing 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup all returned for the first time since the final day of the 2022/23 campaign, with the medical team assessing the health of the players on their arrival back in east London.
After a quick meeting, the players headed straight into testing, with Head of Physical Development Kemal Ismail putting the players through a number of tests in the gym to assess their physical benchmarks.
The players then headed out onto the grass for a short training session which saw plenty of smiles as the team got used to the feel of the football against after almost two months away.
Ismail spoke about the importance of the first few days of pre-season and how testing will help shape the rest of the time before the 2023/24 Barclays Women’s Super League season comes around.
“These first few days of testing will shape all of the work that we’re going to be doing to be doing in pre-season,” he told whufc.com.
“Every day of testing looks a little bit different – we’ve spread things over three of four days to make that we’re getting accurate readings and that too much fatigue is not inhibiting how they perform in tests.
“There are a mixture of physical tests in the gym, as well as the usual blood and saliva tests, which we will periodise over the first few days.
“Then I think it’s really important we get the girls out onto the grass and let them have a touch of the ball. It’s been a long off-season and players have that itch to get back out there and have a bit of banter with their teammates and really get that camaraderie going again.”
Players have enjoyed downtime over the past two months, whilst others have reported for international camps in the build-up to pre-season. All of them however have been given their own individual plans throughout the off-season, and Ismail explains how important it is for players to return to work in the best possible condition.
“It’s massively important for players to have followed the programmes that we set across the summer – even more so in the women’s game,” he confirmed.
“The science and the data is showing that in the physical data, there’s a nine per cent increase on average per year, which is insane! In the men’s game it’s around three or four per cent - so you need to make sure you’re ready to go when we get started.
“It’s not just about that, it’s also a massive opportunity to have some pride in your work and what you do and come back better. All of our players had individualised programmes, be that running, bits in the gym, prehab, corrective work – a mix of everything.
“Hopefully they’ve all used this as an opportunity to be ready to come back and smash the first couple of days whilst also making sure they’ve given themselves the best possible chance of being 100 per cent ready for the new season.”
The Hammers' opening fixture of the 2023/24 Barclays Women’s Super League season will see them face off against Manchester City on Sunday 1 October, meaning that players have just over two months to prepare for the new season.
Ismail explained why pre-season is set out the way that it is to give the squad the best possible chance of being ready for the new campaign.
“We’ve had to work around the international windows not being in the best places, so pre-season is perhaps a little longer than we would ideally like. We’ve worked it so that in this first week the emphasis is on testing and easing the players back in, making sure that we don’t take anything away from training.
“Then, it becomes a seven-week pre-season if you take the international window a week before the season gets underway into consideration. It’s in quite an awkward place, so we wanted to make sure we had that six-week block where we could work through our pre-season without being dictated by that international window.
“We’ve also got the players that are away at the World Cup to think about as well. We know that they are training most days and playing at the very highest level, so they will come in with some fitness already under their belts. Some will have more match fitness than others, and we will manage that accordingly when they are back with us in mid-August,” he concluded.
