The last time Manchester United were in Australia Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was flogging his players in an attempt to improve fitness levels he believed weren't up to scratch.
Fast forward three years and United are Down Under once again. They will head to Perth today having spent six days in Melbourne and it's been another intense pre-season on the training ground.
There have been countless double sessions and even on days when there has been just one session it has tended to last close to three hours.
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The reason for such intensive work this summer? Not just learning Erik ten Hag's style of football, but fitness. According to the Dutchman, this squad still isn't fit enough to play a modern brand of pressing football.
It was an area Solskjaer was critical of when he arrived but his style of play was passive and when Ralf Rangnick took over midway through last season he said he wanted to turn the players into "pressing monsters". He accepted pressing pussycats after a couple of games when he realised they didn't have the fitness levels to sustain that approach.
Rangnick had to compromise on his philosophy, but Ten Hag has a full pre-season to make sure he doesn't and that is partly why he called the players back for training earlier than expected, with the non-internationals back at Carrington on June 27.
They had two weeks of hard work in Manchester and in a 16-day tour of Thailand and Australia they will get just one day off. There can be no excuses this time for failing to press.
Ten Hag held a sit-down interview with the travelling English press on Monday and the subject of fitness and what a demanding pre-season this has been came up. Is it a case of fitness levels being addressed?
"Yes – this is why we started them quite early, fitness but also I wanted to bring in a certain way of playing, it won’t be done when we finish pre-season, but when we finish pre-season we have to get results," he said.
It's not just the United manager saying this. After the game against Melbourne Victory on Friday, Anthony Elanga admitted fitness levels were already improving.
"We know we weren’t as fit last season. I think we are even fitter this season, running for the team, running off the ball, running with the ball, so that elemental running and pressing is really important," he said.
"That’s one of the things the manager has brought into the team and we are really buying into it."
It does seem unusual that three successive managers have now questioned the fitness levels of the squad they've inherited, but the fitness required to play Solskjaer's style is very different to that of Rangnick or Ten Hag.
There's been little complaining from the players, however, and they clearly respect the authority of Ten Hag. In his first sit-down with the journalists who cover United on a daily basis, he came across as intense as expected. By all accounts, he is exactly the same in training and the players are clearly responding to him.
They've had to work hard on tour, but after the four days in Bangkok the temperatures have been much more amenable in Australia and United's players have been able to put the effort in in more favourable conditions. For all the fitness work they've done, there has been no images like we've seen from Tottenham's pre-season in Seoul of players collapsing in baking temperatures after being given the Antonio Conte treatment.
Conte demands extreme fitness levels of his players and Ten Hag clearly has his own ideals as well. He knows how he wants to play and he knows what he needs from his players to achieve that. Hopefully, this is the last time a United manager has cause to question the fitness levels in the squad.
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