With the start to the 2020/21 Premier League season set to be announced as September 12th, Saints and the other 19 clubs in the division have 7 weeks to prepare for the restart, so how will things differ from the normal.

Pre season's are never straight forward anymore, back in the good old days, there was a summer break of roughly 11-12 weeks between the end of one league season and the other one starting.

The thinking was a 5 week break for the players, followed by a return to training and a six week programme that slowly brought the squad to peak condition with work both on the training ground and pre season friendlies.

Of course the penchant for month long tournaments at International level every two years tends to throw much of that into disarray with so many of the squad away with their Country's for a period that cannot be pre determined and if they reach the final of the tournament they could be playing competitive games less than a month before the league campaign begins.

But this summer as we all know is different and new programme is needed and Saints like other clubs will be looking more at something that they use for those returning International players than the norm.

The squad is at peak fitness now after a month of training going into the restart and a six week mini season, so the first job is to give them a break, that is likely to be 2-3 weeks followed to rest weary bones followed by a structured programme.

The good news is that normally the first 2 weeks of pre season is about getting fitness back, but the levels should still be fairly high given a break that is half of what it usually would be.

Then the club can step up the programme and there will be a series of pre season friendlies played behind closed doors rather than the European and even Asian tours we have seen over the past years.

Ralph Hasenhuttl had this say.

“The good thing is, which I’ve spoken about before, is that my players, even if they are off, will do their job and come back fit,"

“You can give them more time off because you know they will be in good shape when they come back and that is really helpful for me to know this and also for our athletic coaches."

Photo: Action Images

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