The transition from the roaring euphoria of European nights back to the relentless, freezing grind of late November in Cheshire was always a shock to the system.
By 7:30 AM on a crisp Thursday morning, frost covered Pitch 2 at Carrington like a sheet of white glass. Fog hung low over the surrounding trees, and every breath out of my mouth formed thick, white clouds in the freezing air. The stadium floodlights of Old Trafford felt miles away; here, it was just the crunch of ice beneath metal studs, the sharp burn of freezing oxygen in the lungs, and the dull, aching throb in my right ankle that had lingered since the Sevilla match.
"Come on! Faster through the ladders! Move your feet!" Steve McClaren’s voice echoed across the quiet training ground, his hands buried deep inside his winter coat. "If you warm up slowly in November, your hamstrings will snap like dry twigs!"
I pumped my arms, driving my knees high through the agility ladders, keeping my weight light on the balls of my feet.
Beside me, Marcus Rashford was breathing heavily, his hood pulled down tight over his forehead. "My toes are completely numb, man. I can't feel my left foot."
"Keep moving, Marcus," I said, offering a tight grin despite my own face feeling frozen stiff. "The second you stop, the frost sets in."
In my past life, back in the humid warmth of Bangkok, November meant pleasant, breezy evenings where you played casual football with friends and grabbed iced tea afterward. Here, November was a physical test of endurance. It was the month where squads began to break—where minor injuries piled up, muscle fatigue set in, and the initial enthusiasm of a new season wore down into pure grit.
Inside the tactical room at 9:00 AM, the atmosphere was quiet, stripped of any leftover celebration from our Champions League victory.
On the video board, Ten Hag pulled up clips of Everton—our next Premier League opponent at Goodison Park.
"Goodison Park in late November is a graveyard for teams that expect an easy rhythm," Ten Hag said, his bald head reflecting the fluorescent lights. His voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy post-workout tiredness in the room. "Sean Dyche’s side does not care about your half-space movement, Antony. They do not care about your tactical rotations. They want to turn the match into ninety minutes of aerial duels, second balls, and set-pieces."
Ten Hag paused the video, highlighting Everton’s left-back, Vitalii Mykolenko, and their aggressive midfielder, Idrissa Gueye.
"Mykolenko will not step out like Acuña did," Ten Hag explained, pointing his laser at the screen. "He will sit deep in a compact low block, allowing you to have the ball wide, but blocking every single internal passing lane to Bruno and Rasmus. If you try to force passes into a crowded central box, they will intercept, launch a seventy-yard long ball to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and earn a corner kick."
Ten Hag switched off the screen, turning to face the squad directly.
"This match requires patience. It requires discipline. If we get frustrated because we haven't scored by the thirtieth minute and start taking wild, low-percentage shots from thirty yards out, we play straight into their hands."
He looked directly at me.
"Antony. You will be double-teamed by Mykolenko and McNeil every time you touch the ball wide. Do not force the hero ball. Cycle possession, test their backline laterally, and wait for the precise moment their defensive shape shifts by half a meter. Do you understand?"
"Understood, Boss," I replied, taking a long drink of water. "Play the long game."
The session that followed on Pitch 1 was a grueling simulation of breaking down an eleven-man low block.
Ten Hag had lined up our second-team players—led by Harry Maguire, Jonny Evans, and Scott McTominay—in a rigid, deep 4-5-1 formation inside their own penalty box. Our objective was simple: keep possession, shift the ball from flank to flank, and find a way through without exposing ourselves to counter-attacks.
For thirty agonizing minutes, it felt like trying to punch a hole through a concrete wall with bare fists.
Every time I received the ball on the right wing, Dwight McNeil tracked back forty yards to cover my outside, while Mykolenko planted his boots firmly inside the penalty area to block my left-footed cross lane. There was zero space to execute an elastico, no room for a quick half-turn, and no passing lane to Højlund.
Touch. Pass back to Dalot.
Touch. Pass back to Casemiro.
"Move it faster, Antony!" Ten Hag yelled from the sideline, blowing his whistle. "You are holding the ball for two seconds! That gives Mykolenko time to adjust his feet! One touch! Shift it!"
Frustration began to bubble under my skin. The cold air burned my throat, my boots felt heavy with frozen mud, and my right ankle gave a sharp, dull twinge every time I planted my heel forcefully.
On the next sequence, Dalot played a hard pass to my feet. Mykolenko stepped up slightly to press.
Instead of cycling the ball back to Casemiro as Ten Hag had instructed, my old impatience—the ego of a player who wanted to unlock every puzzle himself—took over. I tried to force a sharp, nutmeg pass right between Mykolenko's legs toward Bruno in the box.
CLACK.
Mykolenko didn't fall for it. He read the pass easily, clamped his legs shut, and intercepted the ball. Scott McTominay instantly seized the loose ball and launched a forty-yard counter-attack pass over our high defensive line.
Ten Hag blew his whistle violently, stopping the play immediately.
"STAY WITH THE SYSTEM, ANTONY!" Ten Hag barked, marching onto the pitch, his breath forming heavy white clouds in the air. "What did I just tell you in the video room? Why are you trying to force a pass through three pairs of legs?"
"There was a tiny gap, Boss!" I yelled back, wiping cold sweat from my forehead, my temper flaring slightly in the freezing cold. "If Bruno made the run half a second earlier, it was through!"
"There was no gap!" Ten Hag countered, stopping right in front of me, his sharp eyes drilling into mine. "You got impatient because you haven't had a shot on goal for twenty minutes! You stopped playing the team's rhythm and started playing your own frustration! Do it again, and you sit on the bench at Goodison Park!"
The entire squad stood in silence. The cold wind howled across the empty pitches of Carrington.
I looked at Ten Hag, my heart hammering against my ribs, the hot blood rushing to my face despite the freezing temperature. I wanted to argue, to explain that I was trying to create something out of nothing. But as I looked around at Casemiro and Varane, who were shaking their heads subtly, I caught myself.
He's right, I realized, taking a slow, deep breath to cool the fire in my chest. Everton wants me to get frustrated. If I lose my patience in training, I'll lose my head at Goodison Park.
I swallowed my pride, looked Ten Hag straight in the eye, and gave a firm nod.
"My mistake, Boss," I said, my voice steady and cold. "Restart the drill. I'll cycle it."
Ten Hag stared at me for two seconds, searching my face for any lingering defiance. Seeing only calm, disciplined focus, he nodded once and stepped back to the touchline. "From Onana! Restart!"
For the remaining twenty minutes of the session, I buried my frustration completely. I played with the cold, mathematical precision of a grandmaster. I touched, passed, recycled, shifted Everton’s defensive block side to side, and waited.
In the final minute of the drill, after fifteen consecutive passes across the pitch, Mykolenko’s legs finally hesitated by half a step, shifting wide to cover Dalot's dummy overlap.
That was the half-meter space.
Without taking an extra touch, I whipped a crisp, curling first-time pass with the outside of my left boot straight into the box, bending it around Maguire’s shoulder into the path of Rasmus Højlund, who smashed it into the roof of the net!
GOAL!
Ten Hag didn't yell. He didn't smile. He simply blew the final whistle, pointed a finger at me, and said, "That is patience, Antony. Goodison Park on Sunday. Be ready for the war."
Later that afternoon, after a long session in the ice baths and hydrotherapy pools, I sat in the quiet player lounge, wearing a heavy tracksuit, sipping a warm cup of green tea.
My body was exhausted, every muscle aching from the double sessions, but my mind was remarkably clear.
Bruno Fernandes walked over, dropping a heavy recovery foam roller onto the floor beside my sofa, and sat down with a tired sigh.
"You handled the Boss well today, Antony," Bruno said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "A year ago, if he yelled at you like that in front of everyone, you would have pouted for three days."
I smiled quietly, taking a sip of my warm tea. "A year ago, I thought football was about proving how good I was. Now I know it's just about winning the match. If the Boss needs to kick my ass to keep me focused for Everton, he can kick it every day."
Bruno opened one eye, looking at me with a genuine, warm grin. "You're growing up, kid. Goodison Park is going to be nasty on Sunday. Dyche’s teams love nothing more than breaking a technical team's spirit in the cold."
"They won't break ours," I said, setting my cup down, looking out the window at the dark, frost-covered pitches of Carrington as the afternoon sun dipped below the horizon. "We've bled too much in the mud to let them break us now."
The battle for Goodison Park was three days away, and I was ready to embrace the cold, the mud, and the fight.
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