No slacking off in downtime – Fitzgerald

With four games to play in the Red Stripe Premier League's regular season, Molynes United need just one point to avoid relegation. But head coach Calvert Fitzgerald says although the team is close to survival, there is no slacking off, and his word to his players is to stay professional and try to be in the best possible condition when the league resumes.

"What I try to do is get them to think as professional footballers," Fitzgerald said. "Get them to be their best every time they go on the pitch, and the only way they can do that is by keeping themselves in as good a condition as the other teams, so they can be competitive.

"We have been able to stay competitive, but we don't want to just honour fixtures, we want to turn up to compete and get experience."

TRAINING PROGRAMMES

Like other clubs, Molynes have created specific training programmes for players, which Fitzgerald monitors.

"Everybody gets their specific drills that they should do," he said. "They will tape it and send it the [WhatsApp] group or to me, so I can see if they are actually doing the work.

"I have been in football long enough to know that anything can happen. We have four games left and 12 points to play for, and I have always felt that each match you play, you must try to win regardless of your position in the league."

The club lost a number of experienced players during the January window, shortly after a turnaround in form after winning their first six games this season. But Fitzgerald says he has a talented group of young players coming through, and he is hoping the experience they gained from these remaining games will be invaluable to their development.

"A lot of the players that we are left with, this is the first time they are playing Premier League," he said. "We have some very young players and the more playing time they get against other Premier League players, the more they will appreciate what it will take to be competitive at this level. So it's about letting these players know what it takes to stay in the league and compete at the highest level in your country."