Jermaine Jenas recalls nightmare preseason trip under Juande Ramos

While things went extremely sour at the end for Juande Ramos at Tottenham, the Spaniard actually had a positive effect on the team when he first arrived in October of 2017.

Spurs were struggling when he took over but he led the team to a mid-table finish in 2007/08 and also guided them to a League Cup triumph, the last major trophy the club has won.

One thing Ramos was known for during his short time at the club, was his focus on improving the players’ fitness. Former Tottenham midfielder Jermaine Jenas has recalled a nightmare preseason trip to Spain under the former Sevilla boss.

The 36-year-old discussed the brutal schedule that Ramos put the players through and admitted the players had no choice to opt-out.

Speaking to MOTDx (as relayed by Football.London), Jenas said, “No footballers enjoy running as such. We had a pre-season once at Spurs with Juande Ramos where he took us to Valencia and every morning we did a 9km run at 6am around a golf course.

“Then we did a gym workout or we did running on the beach, in and out of the season. Then at 7pm at night we would finally get the balls out and start playing football for a couple of hours. We did that every day for two weeks.

“Opting out was basically not playing in the team again. You get used to it though, your body gets used to it. I was ripped!”

Spurs made an awful start to the following season and found themselves rooted to the bottom of the table with just two points from their first eight games, thus leading to Ramos being sacked and replaced by Harry Redknapp.

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It is interesting to note how much preseason routines have changed even just in the last decade or so as there seemed to be a lot more running back then. It is partly to do with the fact that players take care of themselves in the offseason these days and some even use the opportunity to work on specific fitness variables.

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