Chelsea winger’s “mini pre-season” gives him a chance to turn around potential disaster season

Alejandro Garnacho’s season had a false start, but he’s now had a chance to remedy it with a “mini pre-season” according to the Telegraph.

This is the first time we’ve had one of these new-style three week extended international breaks, and we can already tell what type of tropes are going to come from them.

There are 5 Premier League weeks before the break, enough time to work out which summer moves are working and which aren’t. Thus one of the dominant stories at this time of year will be about players trying to turn around a bad start at their new club.

We’re seeing that now with Alejandro Garnacho, who has played less than an hour for Aston Villa since joining them on loan in the summer. John Percy in the Telegraph says that the winger has spent the three weeks doing a “mini-preseason” to get up to speed. We’ve got a feeling we’ll hear that about a few players.

Garnacho seizes chance to impress his new coach

While these tropes will often be meaningless bluster, we’re inclined to believe that Garnacho angle. He scored in two behind closed doors friendlies, and had a chance to impress Unai Emery.

There are no guarantees, but things couldn’t get much worse for Garnacho, so chances are that he’s improved his odds.

In other news…

Roma tried to sign Jamie Gittens in the summer, and are going to try again in January, where they are going to have more success.

The bulk of Chelsea’s team are back in training now, and we can start to draw some conclusions from who we’re seeing and who we’re not seeing out at Cobham.