'We are ready' - Leeds United fans will love Jaka Bijol's pre-season verdict ahead of Man Utd clash
Leeds United have been hard at work ahead of this weekend’s trip to Sweden.
Pre-season training has not been easy for Jaka Bijol but Leeds United’s summer signing knows hard work is necessary to be ready for the challenge ahead.
Bijol joined up with his new teammates for the first time last week as Leeds returned to Thorp Arch for pre-season training. The towering centre-back enjoyed a busy break from football, marrying his now wife and going on honeymoon either side of securing a £15million move to Elland Road from Udinese.
Videos uploaded by the club have shown Leeds players getting put through their paces at a sunny Thorp Arch over the past week, with preparations set to kick up a notch when they face Manchester United in Stockholm on Saturday. Bijol is one of four new signings who will hope to make a positive early impression in Sweden and has been working hard to get up to speed with his new teammates.
“Yeah, for sure, the first couple of days have been hard,” he told LUTV during a brief break from training. “It should be hard, so that we are ready for it. We’ll be suffering for some more weeks, I think. It’s a bit better like this [doing ball work early on], I think. We still run a little bit but at least we have a ball. It’s a little bit of everything.”
While the days of running endless laps of the pitch are long gone, Bijol and his new teammates will be put through a series of gruelling fitness challenges as they look to sharpen up ahead of their first Premier League games against Everton. And those efforts will only have been made more difficult during a heatwave in which temperatures around Thorp Arch climbed towards 30 degrees.
But having spent the last three years in the north east of Italy, Bijol will be no stranger to a sunny pre-season camp and the Slovenian is well acclimatised to such temperatures. On dealing with the heat, he insisted: “Nah, this is still nice. I was just a lot worse in Italy with a lot hotter weather, so like this is perfect with a little bit of sun.”
Bijol will get the full British weather treatment this week as temperatures drop and the rain arrives before Leeds jet off to Stockholm. He and fellow new signings Lukas Nmecha, Sebastiaan Bornauw and Gabriel Gudmundsson are all expected to play some part in Saturday’s friendly against Manchester United, offering fans a first chance to see their summer arrivals in action.
Those in Sweden, or watching from back home, should also get a chance to see Dan James fresh off his signing of a new four-year contract, while a built-up Patrick Bamford will also be keen to prove his fitness ahead of next month’s Premier League return. Willy Gnonto, Mateo Joseph and Brenden Aaronson are likely to miss out, given they haven’t yet reported for pre-season after their extended international campaigns that ran into late-June.