The days of players reporting back for pre-season showing obvious signs of having enjoyed their summer holidays are long gone.

I witnessed a couple of pre-seasons where lung-busting ‘beep test’ sessions led to players heading to the bushes to be sick, or the squad being strung out like the washing as they came back after a long cross-country run.

With the advances in sports science, diet and exercise, players have reported back to the training ground fit and raring to go.

“I wish that were the case for coaches!” said Rob Edwards. “I’ve got to get back to the gym. I need to do a bit of hard work myself.

“But it’s true that things are very different now. You can’t afford, as a player, to fall too far behind. They want to concentrate on football, and if they want to do that they know that physically they have to be ready to go on day one.

“In years gone by you’d come back to pre-season and just do two weeks of running and fitness work. You’d barely see a ball. But now players stay in much better shape and there’s far more science behind what we do.

“Players understand and buy into the science behind what we tell them. They want to be fit and strong and ready to play. As I said previously, if you want to be a player that can manage 40 or 50 games a season, then you have to keep yourself in great shape.”

With more players back after extended breaks due to featuring in international games, the second week at London Colney has been about consolidation.

"We’re building on the first week,” said Edwards. “There’s an element of needing to work hard physically but we’re also trying to make sure there is plenty of learning too.

"The group did really well last week, worked really, really hard and now we’re trying to build in the tactical stuff to create a structure of work. Without trying to sound very school-like, it’s about having a curriculum and wanting to make sure everyone's learning and building on the work that we’re doing. Pre-season is about continually trying to move things forward.

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“You can’t assume that because you’ve done a piece of work with players that they’ve got it and you don’t have to go back and do it again. There has to be an element of repetition because something you did one day can be forgotten the next.

“So it’s been a week of hard work again, but with a greater degree of tactical pieces. It’s been a really great week.”