Tony Pulis says Tottenham's Marbella camp is a very different kind of team bonding from the one he used to arrange at Stoke City. Tottenham went to Marbella last week for a warm-weather camp before facing Coventry on Monday night, while Pulis pointed back to pre-season trips that were built around harder routines, longer days and a stricter edge.
Pulis's old-school methods
Speaking on BBC Sport, Pulis said: "I found out a lot about all of them, good and bad."
He said he often took Stoke to Austria for 10 days in pre-season to test fitness and group dynamics. He also recalled three days in Blackpool, with beach running each morning and seven-a-side games in the afternoon. Players stayed in a guest house with three-quarter beds and were allowed out for a few beers in the evenings.
Pulis said they had to be downstairs and ready to hit the beach again at 8am the next morning. He also mentioned taking Stoke to an army camp early in his managerial career.
The contrast with modern warm-weather camps is obvious enough, but Pulis's point is not nostalgia for its own sake. He is arguing that those trips told him plenty about players, and Tottenham's own stay in Marbella is meant to help the same sort of understanding, just in a far more comfortable setting.
Tottenham's current problem
The camp comes with Tottenham in a poor league position. They are 20th after six games, with 3 points from a winless 0-3-3 start, 3 goals scored and 9 conceded.
That does not make a bonding trip a cure-all, and Pulis would know that better than most. It does, though, explain why a bit of time together away from the noise has been framed as part of the reset before Coventry on Monday night.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
