Bromley manager, Andy Woodman believes Marcus Ifill “can hurt people” across 2025-26 season with his quality.
Ifill netted a 44th minute winner as Woodman’s Ravens came from behind to beat Chelsea Under-21s 2-1 yesterday (19 July) after Omar Sowunmi’s header cancelled out a 17th-minute opener from Chelsea’s Ryan Kavuma-McQueen.
Speaking to Bromley’s media team post-match, Woodman praised Ifill for his progress in pre-season after he only managed six substitute appearances in the second half of last season, following his Deadline-Day move from Brighton in February.
“Marcus has done alright. He has done alright keeping it under wraps for us a bit at the moment. He’s having a decent pre-season. On a serious note with Marcus, I saw him play loads last year, loads. He played higher up the pitch and I just felt he wasn’t involved in the game enough higher up the pitch when he played for Brighton.”
Woodman however iterated that Ifill’s struggles wasn’t entirely the fault of Brighton, as he explained that his decision to not start the 21-year-old in the second half of last season was purely about preparing him for this season and believes that he can cause trouble for opposition this season.
“That’s no criticism of Brighton and I kind of kept him under wraps for the end of last season on the hope that I could get a preseason into him and then put him in a position that’s probably a little bit defensive in his mind, but he’s involved in the game more.
“And with his talent and his pace and his quality, you can see he could hurt people. So quite happy the way Marcus is going about his business.”
Defender, Sam German also caught Woodman’s eye who singled the 20-year-old out as the best player during which he made some crucial blocks to protect the Ravens’ lead.
“He looked like the best player on the pitch I thought. I thought Sam German was brilliant. He looks like he has matured. I think he’s only still 20, is he? I mean he has been around us since he was like 16-17, Sam. And he probably overlooked that and took that for granted but fair play to Sam.
“He looked really composed and a good player out there today. So that was a real plus and I’ll go on to say all those young lads that come on, I thought they had done brilliant.”
Acknowledging the gulf in quality between Bromley and Chelsea’s academies, Woodman praised the young substitutes for how they handled the challenge in terms of play and on-pitch conduct to see out the win.
“It’s not easy for them coming on to a game like this against players their own age that are probably at a level they would like to be at but I thought they really went about their stuff well and conducted themselves well and yeah give us some more players to think about in our academy.”
The whole performance also drew compliments from Woodman in terms of young talent developing patterns and learning how to handle possession-based teams, which will come up when facing various opponents this season.
“I think we saw some real talent on display here and some really good patterns are played by those young players. For us it was a 75-minute workout We had another 11 play away at Horsham to get the 75 minutes in and I thought that it was a good workout for us.
“You know we got a chance to play against a team that is possession based which we are going to come up against and put our press on.”
“So that works well for us and it’s always nice to get a result. Doesn’t matter who you play against. I know it doesn’t mean a lot at this stage, but we do want to win and I thought we sort of went about our business really well.”
Half of the first-team squad didn’t face Chelsea as they instead headed to Horsham which finished goalless, with Ben Krauhaus amongst those who made the trip despite having only re-joined his former club club in midweek on loan from Brentford.
Woodman explained that decision to split the first-team squad was simply a strategic fitness level boosting move to use the remaining friendlies to ensure that everyone is back up to playing a full match, ahead of their season-opener away at Shrewsbury on 2 August at 3pm BST.
“Well we need to get the players up to 90 minutes and if you sort of keep having two elevens in the same stadium, you can only get 45 minutes into both elevens. So I took the decision to send to send 11 down to get 75 minutes, 11 here to do 75 minutes.”
“And then on Tuesday night, there’ll be 11 here doing 90 minutes and 11 away at Tonbridge Angels doing 90 minutes. The every man for himself when we come to the Millwall game next week where we’ll sort of start really seeing the shape of the squad a little bit more but it is just really fitness levels and making sure that we use the preseason the right way for us.”
With Soul Kader and Marcus Dinanga back from long-term injuries to boost the forward unit, Woodman is pleased at the fitness levels after their warm-weather training camp in Albufeira, Portugal, particularly in comparison to last season when they were newcomers to the EFL.
“I feel like we look like a fit team. I know we’ve always been a fit team since I’ve been here. I pride my teams to make sure that we’re fit.
“We look a level above what we were last year fitness terms. I’m really happy without getting carried away where we’re at fitness wise for sure.”
With three wins from four in pre-season during which they came from behind to beat Tottenham and Chelsea, Woodman is happy at how the preparations for the new campaign has gone in terms of facing different oppositions and playing styles.
“I think we’ve got the balance of preseason pretty right here since I’ve been here and I think hopefully this is another one that sets us up nicely for the forthcoming season. I’m really sort of don’t want to get too carried away, but I’m chuffed at the moment.”
Bromley’s penultimate pre-season friendly will see them play host to Woodman’s childhood club, Crystal Palace on Tuesday 22 July, of which half of the first team will be involved whilst the other half visit Tonbridge Angels with Woodman keen for his players to treat the FA Cup champions like any other top team.
“Absolutely, yeah I mean I’ve had great affinity with Crystal Palace as a player, a coach and many staff and obviously the chairman, Steve Parish. So I’m looking forward to them coming over. We’ll treat them with the same respect we do all these big clubs and we hope we put a good performance out and get our fitness levels before we sort of get closer to the season.”
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