Firstly, Jarrod, welcome back! How are you feeling? Fit and fresh and ready to go?
“Yeah, definitely ready to go. It's always nice to have a bit of time off and mentally switch off from football for a few weeks and go and see your family, see your friends and spend time with them. It's been a really good break for me, and I've been able to see my family that I haven't seen for a while.
“It was just very, very chilled seeing loved ones, and I think it's important to spend that time with them and have that time away from football. I also got married to my partner Dani, which was incredibly special, and I feel like I've done everything I needed to during the break.
“Now we’re looking forward to what should be a really exciting season. We've got an exciting couple of camps coming up as well in Germany and the United States, which will be really exciting for us, and we want to try and build as much as possible in the time that we have now before the season, both in our work on the pitch and off the pitch.
"We have to be ready, and we have to be listening and be willing to work every day now until the season starts.”
It is a fresh start for everyone and the first full pre-season under the Head Coach. We can all really sense that at Rush Green and around the Club. It's nice to look at the future with a lot of positivity, isn't it?
"When you come back in [after some time off], you have that excitement of seeing people that you haven't seen for a few weeks.
"I think it's just a sense of enjoyment from everyone. We’ve got players back that have been out on loan, and some of the Academy players that were also out on loan have been integrated with the squad today (Monday), so it was nice to see them as well, and it’s an opportunity for them to impress the Head Coach and his staff.
"He (Graham Potter) has got a full pre-season now where everyone's going to be involved, so it's an exciting time to have a pre-season with this manager and see what we can do. Everyone has come back hungry and ready to put the work in from day one up until the season starts.”
What have you been up to on the first day back?
"It was just a day of different tests from the medical team, and we were in the gym as well. We were also outside for a little bit to see where we were at after our summer breaks.
"We know it's always difficult in pre-season, and we were all looking forward to getting a touch of the balls as quickly as possible and getting that coordination back, because you have four or five weeks off of not training every day, and you can soon lose a bit of coordination. It was a really good first day.”