David Gray Reviews Successful Netherlands Camp

David Gray was delighted with the work he got into his Hibernian FC First Team squad during their week-long training camp in the Netherlands.

Gray and his coaching staff worked tirelessly on the pitch with the players every day, sometimes putting them through double and triple sessions, to ensure they built up a bank of fitness ahead of the 2025/26 campaign.

When speaking to Hibs TV after the match against Ajax, Gray gave his thoughts on the training camp as a whole.

“It’s been a really worthwhile trip. The facility was fantastic. We came back to the same place we were last year and were able to make a few improvements to what we experienced last year, so I’m delighted the club were able to put that in place for us. They pushed the boat out for us on that front.

“Like I say, the facilities were fantastic, and it’s been a really tough week for the boys.

“Everything you’d want as a coach has happened, in terms of making sure everyone gets fitter, stronger, and comes through the whole week fit and well. It’s been a tough week for the players, the weather has been better, which made it tougher for the players, so all in all it was a really successful week.”

As aforementioned, the whole week was planned with fitness in mind, incorporating high intensity sessions that touched on elements of Gray’s style of play.

“Ultimately the idea behind pre-season is to get the players as fit as you can as safely as you can, so they’re at their peak for the first competitive game,” admitted Gray.

“It was slightly different this year to last season because last year was my first year as Head Coach, we had new staff and a big turnover in players, but this season there’s only two or three players coming into the group, and two of them already played in Scotland. They’ve all integrated really well. We haven’t had to embed new ideas, we’ve been able to accelerate what we’ve been working on and getting the players fit and strong.

“We’ve been working on elements without the ball too, to make sure that we’re geared up for that first competitive game.”

During the camp, the Hibees competed in their first two pre-season friendlies. The first outing ended in a goalless draw against German 3 Liga side MSV Duisburg.

“One of the biggest challenges for this match was managing the players’ minutes during the friendlies, making sure they were safe enough to play,” said Gray.

“The international players came back a week later than the rest of the squad, so they weren’t ready from a sports science point of view to be thrown into games, especially the first, so you don’t want to be taking risks at this stage of the season.

“The fixture itself was a really good exercise, playing in 34-35 degrees is always a challenge and a test on the mentality side. I thought that played a part in the game as it was a little slower than your typical pre-season game. The players got minutes into their legs, and the data showed that the players found that game tough.

“You also have to think that the week the players had leading into the Duisburg game wasn’t their normal training week. The day before was a triple session, so it was about minutes rather than specific performance. Of course, people are looking at results, and judging that, but we’re looking at the bigger picture making sure we’re getting everything from each and every session to make sure we keep improving.”

The final day of the training camp ended with a 6-3 defeat to Dutch Giants Ajax at their De Toekomst training facility. Despite the score-line, Gray was able to take a number of learnings from the performance.

“There were lots of positives and negatives to take from the Ajax game. You can get caught up in the score-line, but when you look at the level of opposition, mistakes being punished, and trying to play in the wrong areas; there’s lots of positives and things that we need to work. It’s great that they happened today.

“It was the first 45 minutes for some players and all about 45 minutes in their legs, after a really tough week. Today was a good end to the week because we know we got everything physically out the players that we could safely.

“Every player has at least had 45 minutes in their legs, which puts us in a really strong position. We can extend that and push that looking towards Essen on Wednesday night, which is the next step in pre-season.”