Big Phil Gets Down To Work

[Alan]

Luiz Felipe Scolari met the Chelsea players for the first time today (Monday), as they reported back for pre-season training at Cobham.

The Brazilian made his first visit to the training ground yesterday, and returned today to welcome back the members of the first team squad who had not been on international duty during the summer break.

The first day, much like a return to school after a summer holiday, saw the players exchanging stories before the club medical staff put them through a series of tests to measure their fitness ahead of the new campaign.

These tests are important for both measuring players' fitness levels and acting as a benchmark on medical issues following injury. Joe Cole is pictured speaking to the manager during an optical test.

Having introduced himself to the squad, Scolari was on hand to oversee the tests, and will be taking his first training session out on the pitches tomorrow.

That will be a busy day for the 59-year-old, who will hold his first press conference as Chelsea manager, as well as speaking exclusively to Chelsea TV. You can subscribe here.

Official Chelsea Website

Be interesting to see the standard of his English at the press conference tomorrow.

[Kerry]

Be interesting to see the standard of his English at the press conference tomorrow.

Me too. Especially because there were the most hilarious rumours around. BBC was sure that his English is nonexistent while Sky thought that his English is good enough to get to work immediately. Let's hope the best

[abramovich]

Big Phil checks on his new players during testing.

[Jimboola69]

Love the last picture.

"Okay Mr Pizarro...in the picture in front of you, try to find the ball...any ball"

[Alan]

The press conference is at 1pm btw.

[Kerry]

What's the last picture about? Are they testing the motor activity?

[Alan]

I think it tests the players reaction speeds. Red lights appear in the circles and the players have to touch the light as fast as they can to make it go off.

[Kerry]

I think it tests the players reaction speeds. Red lights appear in the circles and the players have to touch the light as fast as they can to make it go off.

Ah, well that makes sense. At the beginning I thought about the tables which they have at the doctor's ... but that didn't make any sense to me