The Blues won both their friendly matches, against Orgryte IS and Carlstad United, but the time spent in the new boss’ homeland has been invaluable for squad bonding and for Eriksson to assess players he had known for only just over a week.
Sven said: “The game against Carlstad was a good work-out, however I noticed that some players showed a touch of tiredness in the second half.
“I suppose you can put that down to playing three games in the last eight days, however we’ve had many good training sessions here in Sweden. I know now that we have a good group of players who are very professional and have behaved well, they are working very, very hard to prepare for the Premier League.”
He stressed that Andreas Isaksson was not injured, but was merely rested on Saturday to give Joe Hart and Kasper Schmeichel a half each in front of a sell-out crowd of 7,800.
“I was very pleased with the performances of both our young goalkeepers, Kasper’s penalty save being the highlight in the second half,” Sven continued.
“Richard Dunne, Nedum Onuoha and Emile Mpenza were not risked because of minor knocks that they picked up in the first friendly, which was a much higher intensity than Saturday’s match.”
Paul Dickov has a badly bruised toe picked up against Orgryte, but the entire squad is expected to train this week, with Darius Vassell also set to be back at Carrington after a slightly twisted knee before Saturday’s friendly against Charleroi in Belgium.
