First Team Coach Jon Meeney was awarded the first media duties of the new campaign, and spoke following a narrow victory over League One side Wycombe Wanderers to start pre-season.
With Sutton’s first planned friendly against Bromley being cancelled, the players were itching to get back to match action and took to a highly anticipated match-up on Tuesday night, producing an extremely positive display against the League One Play-Off Semi-Finalists, something which Meeney described as being an important challenge.
“Just a really good performance, hitting all the key physical KPIs” Meeney told SUFCtv. “Everyone has come through safe and sound so now it’s just about recovering back on Thursday and keep enhancing our performance.”
“Any team we play during pre-season is going to give us different challenges that we’ve got to rise to. Obviously we’ll find out a lot of things about ourselves as we try and
increase our level of performance, but ultimately they’re a very, very good team.”
“They made lots of signings, they’ll be looking to get promoted this season, so it’s a nice confidence boost that we can keep a clean sheet, but also we can showcase what our principles are about.”
U’s supporters also got to watch a host of new players in action, with nine of Sutton’s ten summer recruits taking to the pitch.
“We’re pleased with everyone. I’m not going to stand here and talk about individuals, we’ve brought those players into the club because we believe in them” added Meeney.
“We do our due diligence. We know that they’re going to improve us along with the players that stayed. So, everyone’s integrating well. There’s a good social chemistry with them and we’re just looking to keep improving our performances.”
One such recruit was Kane Crichlow, who, after arriving from Chelmsford City in the summer, displayed some of the perennial talent which saw him picked up by then-Premier League side Watford earlier in his career, and topped off his impact by finishing off a superb team move to get a deserved winner.
“All I’m going to say is he [Crichlow] showed that real calm composure in the last action which maybe at times last season we we were missing” Meeney said. “We were over-relying on one individual scoring goals, but we feel we’re more dynamic in the final third this year.”
“That’s the type of personnel that we brought in, but ultimately all stems from good shape to allow us then to transition into those areas and then be our best version.”
Jayden Harris also made his long-awaited comeback from a season-ending Achilles injury sustained last November against Rochdale AFC, along with Alex Kirk and Jack Taylor who also endured premature ends to the 2024/25 season. Meeney credited the work put in by each player to the medical staff, who have ensured a superb level of progress in their mission to return to action at the earliest opportunity.
“Massive credit goes to the likes of Sean [Miles] and the the medical team: Luke [Silavwe], Cat [Chambers], and everyone else at the club with the way that they’ve supported those individuals in their in their recovery”
“It’s just great to see them back out especially at Gander Green Lane and ultimately now – let’s not get carried away – they now need to recover right. We need to keep obviously building them up managing them correctly and if we do that then it’s like having three new players within the squad.”
