You can't read too much into pre-season, but Chester look ready
The Blues rounded off their preparations with a 0-0 draw at home to Crewe Alexandra
The dress rehearsals are over, and Chester, if we’re thinking about how they’ll fare when the curtain goes up, have given plenty of reasons for optimism for even the hardened pessimist.
A good pre-season does not always make for a good season. The same can be applied to a poor pre-season. I can remember Chester being dismantled 6-0 in rather grim fashion by Blackpool back in 2005 under Keith Curle. The next six months (before the annual cash crisis that undermined the managerial incumbent at the Deva) were some of the very best watching the Blues in my time in the stands.
This past month has been a good one for Chester and Phil Parkinson.
Parkinson came in with a reputation for playing good football and for his teams having a clear identity, and he has been afforded a most warm welcome at the Deva Community Stadium.
The recruitment has intrigued fans, as has the focus on building a more professional support structure on the playing side. All positive things, but all things that are expected to be impactful. There is a collective will for Parkinson and Neil Sorvel to do wonderful things here, and the players have already started to make their presence felt among fans in a positive way.
Parkinson mentioned recently that there is a requirement for the team to win games of football at Chester that takes on greater importance than maybe it has done at other clubs he has been at because of the size of the fanbase and the history and culture around the football club. But playing good football has always been something held dear to the heart of Blues fans. We remember the Ian Rush managerial experiment, after all.
This has been a pre-season that has shown consistent improvement. The latest, and final stop before the National League North season starts in earnest was a 0-0 draw at home to EFL League Two side Crewe Alexandra on Saturday in front of more than 1,700 fans at the Deva.
No goals, but a positive result against Crewe’s first team seven days out from the season starting at Chorley on August 8 is nothing to be sniffed at. Neither is the fact that Chester, for the majority of the game, looked like the side who would be playing EFL football this coming season.
Don’t fall in love with loan players and don’t get carried away with pre-season friendlies are two things which should be on the Magna Carta of English football fandom outside the Premier League. We don’t have loan players this year, well not yet, so the focus has been on what our new-look, freshly assembled cast for the 2026/27 campaign can do for us.
GOOD SIGNS
There is a clear way of playing football here under Parkinson.
We have a squad of players that have been brought in for their specific skill sets to maximise the potential of the additional training time and the system that Parkinson wants to implement.
Putting it out there nice and early, the fact that we will be playing it out from the back so often won’t sit well with all fans, and on a cold December Tuesday evening there are bound to be shouts of “get it forward!!”
Understood. But when looking at the profile of player that Parkinson has brought in there is a clear skill set that has emerged across the backline in that they are all capable under pressure with the ball at their feet, and that extends to goalkeeper Luke Hewitson.
When I spoke to Kevin Roberts earlier this summer he’d been in at Fleetwood Town for some months. I asked him about Hewitson and he said he was a technically good keeper, but what really had stood out was his ability with the ball at his feet and his distribution.
He will make mistakes this season, and there will be mistakes from playing out from the back. But it is about controlling possession as early as possible and reducing the likelihood of the ball just aimlessly being hoofed forward only to be returned seconds later. It is giving away possession cheaply, and this is a Chester side that, for the most part this season, I would expect to try and control possession, certainly at home.
We have the personnel to do that across the pitch, and some of the performances we have seen in the last couple of games make me think that, while we should temper expectation to some degree, there is a reason to believe that this time could be different if we get a little luck in terms of injury prevention.
Defensively we’ve looked organised. Five clean sheets is testament to that. There is an understanding that is building there and a calm, measured control that exudes from the backline, with Jake Griffin oozing confidence and taking on the mantle of a leader despite his young years.
NEED FOR REED
Sam Reed was a player that Parkinson had identified when he took the job, but it was a case of whether there would be the chance to get the deal done for the former Altrincham man.
Parkinson told The Seal earlier in the summer that Reed would be hugely important to how this Chester side wanted to play, and that he had the talent to be a player who fans would really take to. That premonition looks to be more on the money with each passing game.
I’ve been impressed throughout pre-season, but against Crewe he was, for me, the best player on the pitch.
Not only was it his tenacity in and out of possession, the strength and desire to win the ball, it was how quick minded he was. He is a player with a high football IQ and one who gets Chester up the pitch down the flanks. He is an asset on both the attacking and defensive end, and he is comfortable receiving possession in a tight spot and making the right decision. He also seems to have the potential to pop up with a few goals this coming season.
His arrival might not have been heralded as some kind of game changer, but he has been mightily impressive. To dominate against players two levels above, that is something that should imbue confidence whether it is pre-season or not.
EVER IMPROVING
A few other players have grown in stature as the last four weeks have worn on.
As a 32-year-old number nine who has admitted he isn’t the fastest and won’t be torching defenders with his blistering pace in behind, Jacob Hazel knows what his game is this season.
He is physical, he is dangerous in the box, but he has a role to facilitate Chester staying higher up the pitch and linking the play for the advancing midfielders, of whom Dan Ward looks to be another shrewd summer pick up.
Hazel was excellent against Crewe and against an experienced EFL campaigner in Mickey Demetriou. There are plenty of top centre backs in the National League North, many of them advancing in years. Those older heads know the game and how to play it, but so does Hazel, and something Chester didn’t have last season, until Dylan Mottley-Henry’s purple patch through the middle, was someone who could be that link man in a confident manner.
There are goals this season to come from various areas, and Hazel will be among them, but it’s already clear to see that, given this is his first pre-season in two years because of his ACL injury at Boston United, that his fitness is getting better, and so is his sharpness.
EXPECT CONNOR MURPHY TO BE USED
One player that has really excited Parkinson since he arrived at Chester is that of Connor Murphy, the teenage academy graduate who inked his first senior deal last week.
He has been a big part of pre-season and he is a player who Parkinson believes he can put faith in this season, and someone who is likely to see plenty of game time as the season progresses.
He has the size and technical ability, as well as the tenacity to operate effectively in a central midfield role, and with Ward and Declan Weeks the only senior central midfielders fit, with Jack Bainbridge still a few weeks away and Sam Foley having to work to get back sharpness after heading to London for an injection for pain management, Murphy will be called upon.
He hasn’t disappointed during pre-season and the Chester boss is adamant that he has the capability to be a real asset for the Blues moving forward.
WHAT THE MANAGER SAID
Speaking to Chester FC TV, Parkinson said: “The biggest thing for me is coming through it as unscathed as possible, having as few injuries as possible, embedding our principles into the players as quickly as we could, getting the group to gel. From pre‑season, it suggests that’s gone fairly well. But as I said at the start, if we’d lost every single game and hit the ground running, that’s the biggest thing we’re looking to.
“All the attention now is on Chorley. Pre‑season’s been used for its purpose, for all the bits I’ve just said there, and we’ll be as ready as we can be going into the weekend.”
“I thought we were very good today, and we had to be, because that’s an outstanding Crewe team. It’s not like they’ve sent the kids; that’s as strong as they can go at the moment. I know they’ll want to bring in a couple more, speaking to their management team, and I can only thank Crewe for coming down and equipping themselves the way they did. They gave us every respect and played us a really good game of football. I thought our lads equipped themselves really well.
“At the moment I feel we’ve laid the foundations. There’s still loads more to do, but I think anyone coming to watch Chester now can identify with how we want them to play. Whether they like that or not is another matter, but I can’t affect that. I’ve been brought in to try and win games, and the way I know how to win is by playing a certain brand of football, believing in it, and living and dying by the sword, so to speak.
“When we win, everyone will love it. When we lose, it’ll be ‘tippy-tappy football’ and not the way to play. But again, I can’t affect that. All I can be is consistent with my messages, and the team will certainly get that from me.
“The biggest thing for me is we’re a team that want to dominate the ball. We want to create chances. We want to score more goals than we are. So although we’re scoring and winning, we’d like to entertain our fans a little bit more with more goals. But I think they can see that the creative side of the team is 100% there, now we’ve just got to be a bit more ruthless with our execution.
“I absolutely can’t wait for next weekend. It’s felt such a long time coming. The fans have been superb so far, the way they’ve welcomed us, the excitement and energy around the place. I just hope we can take that into the start of the season for them.”
“We’re perennial bad starters normally, myself and Neil, because you’re having to implement a style of play that normally takes a little bit longer. But I feel we’re ahead of where we’ve been in the past. Hopefully we can start well, get everybody even more excited, and get that snowball effect going throughout the season.”