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Monk - We Are Focused On Preparations For Chelsea

The new Barclays Premier League season is just one week away and this evening Garry Monk has the final chance to see his players in match action ahead of the opening day fixture away at Chelsea.

It has been a good summer so far for the Swansea boss with some strong transfer dealings, the keeping together of his squad from last season and - certainly ahead of today - an unbeaten set of results in pre-season with three draws and a win to date.

Everything is planned to minute detail these days at Swansea even today's kick off was arranged for 5.30pm in preparation for the same kick off time next week thanks to Sky coverage of our opening fixture.

It is little wonder then that he uses his programme notes for today's game to show his positivity and he wrote "Since we returned at the end of June, everyone has been fully focused and worked extremely hard up until this point as we prepare for the opening day trip to Chelsea next weekend and the rest of the season ahead.

"After completing a fortnight of intense training at our Landore facility, the squad headed off on our week-long training camp in Germany which helped integrate everyone into the group.

"It gave us solid foundation for our two friendlies in Germany where we drew 1-1 with Borussia Monchengladbach and beat 1860 Munich 2-1. Back on home soil, the squad was then split over a weekend double header where we drew 1-1 against Reading and then Nottingham Forest.

"Although we did enough to win both games, I look more for the performance level of the players plus the match fitness, which remains more important at this stage of the season where it's vital that the players get the minutes under their belts"

Once today's game is out of the way then it is all systems go for the new season in the Barclays Premier League and we certainly have a manager who believes his squad is ready, let's hope the plans are as strong as they were this time last year.

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