Motherwell will head to Holland for pre-season, and boss Stuart Kettlewell jokes that he already has the programme mapped out to almost military precision.
But the Fir Park gaffer is completely serious about everybody at Motherwell knowing exactly where they are this summer.
The Steelmen will head to the Delden for a seven-day training camp from June 24 until July 1, and will take part in friendly games.
Kettlewell has put a lot of thought into the programme of preparation for season 2023/24 and says it’s a short break for players and staff before they’re back in again.
But he says everybody at Fir Park should take a lot of confidence from how they’ve ended a difficult season, as they look ahead to the future.
He said: “We know the time we’re going to have off – I think it’s three weeks, which is a really short period of time.
“We have pre-season planned already.
“We know where we’re going to go for pre-season, the games we’re going to play, the sessions we’re going to do, and the hours the players are going to be on the park.
“I know it sounds a wee bit ‘military’ in terms of the planning, but that’s how I like it to be – it’s important that I know the stages the players are going to go through.
“The other aspects of who moves on, and who offers what for players and all the rest of it, I can’t control.
“But as long as the players know this is the work that we’re going to get through, then I always believe in that process.
“You have to believe in what you do, in the stages and the milestones that you’re going to go through, and believe that it’s going to have an impact on the new season.”
Kettlewell has taken Motherwell from being relegation-threatened to battling for seventh in the Premiership, and says the players must take heart from that.
He said: “You’ve got to take huge confidence from it, I’ll never shy away from that. I’m not tying to downsize any of the achievements recently, or how good the team have been.
“But it’s a different season. There’s a transfer window in there, there’s a summer, there’s a multitude of things that can happen.
“I think we all know in this unpredictable world of Scottish football that we live in, that there’s going to be any number of changes in squads, in budgets, and all the different things.
“All we can do is control the controllables.”
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