Mick Jones will be producing a blog throughout the coming Premier League season. If you have any questions for our Assistant Manager, e-mail [email protected]. In this, his second entry, Jones reflects on a busy opening week of pre-season training ... 'Pre-season has been underway for a week now and I must admit that I've enjoyed it immensely. Especially as we've returned to training with the prospect of Premier League football next season, and that is fantastic for everybody involved with the Club. The players are all talking about who we'll be playing next season, and so are the coaches. Even at my age, it's still exciting! If you lose that, then you might as well be out of the game. The lads also look sharp and in excellent condition. But the modern day footballer doesn't get unfit anyway, unless they're stupid! The close season breaks are shorter these days as well, so players can't really get into a situation where they can get unfit. Jay Bothroyd and Kieron Dyer joined the Club on Wednesday and, I must admit, it was mixture of relief and excitement to finally get those two in. There was competition for both players from a lot of big Clubs. Neil Warnock's worked really hard on Jay and has kept in touch with him throughout the summer on a daily basis - and I think he has appreciated that. When Neil first went in pursuit of Jay, I wasn't sure whether we would get him. I was aware that there were two other very big Premier League Clubs interested, and knew the type of finances that they would be able to throw at him. But Neil got through to the lad and, if Jay's going to be a success in the Premier League, there's no better place than QPR for him to do that. Neil has a way of convincing players that this is the right place to be, irrespective of other offers that a player may have. There's only one reason we got Jay - and that is Neil Warnock. We've got two in now and it's a case of don't panic. We've got people on our radar and there's still a healthy amount of time to bring new players to the Club. And you can be guaranteed that Neil will be working tirelessly to do so. For the meantime, it's off to Harrow Borough on Friday for our first game of pre-season, and I must admit that I'm looking forward to seeing the lads back out there again. We took young Troy Hewitt from Harrow and this is a way of thanks to them for that. I'm quite excited about it. It's the first time that we'll see the players as a team again, and we will take a strong squad. It will be great also for Harrow, because hopefully we'll give them a full house.' http://www.qpr.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~2392492,00.html
