WARRINGTON Town’s players can expect “plenty of hard yards” when they return to pre-season today, Thursday.

The Yellows squad, including their five new signings, report back for training to begin preparations for the 2018-19 Evo-Stik Premier Division season.

Their first pre-season friendly is at Wythenshawe Town on July 14, with their opening league match to be played on August 18.

Before then, though, manager Paul Carden and his coaches will be getting the players as physically ready as possible.

The Town boss says their pre-season will not just be about running, but says fitness and conditioning will play a key part.

“We’ve had quite a big turnover of players, so we need to get them back in and get cracking,” he said.

“We need to integrate the new players and get them as prepared as we can for the new season.

“To have any success in any season, you need to keep your players fit.

“That proved to be our downfall last year, we suffered too many impact injuries.

“You have to get your lads as fit as you can in terms of stamina, strength, pace and power while avoiding injuries at the same time.

“We’re mindful of doing too much, and we can’t forget that round thing we have to use when it all kicks off.

“It’s not all about the running. We’ll implement ball work into fitness sessions.

“There will be a fair bit of legwork. It has to be done.

“Pre-seasons are never easy. If you’ve had an easy pre-season you’ve either been injured or very unsuccessful.

“At the end of the day, you don’t get fit if you don’t work hard so there will be plenty of hard yards.”

The Town squad return amid a spell of hot weather, with temperatures expected to remain high until at least next week.

Carden says the heat will be taken into account, but at the same time he urged his players to make the best of the conditions.

“We’ll have to make sure everybody’s got plenty of fluids on board in this weather,” he said.

“The ground will be like a car park. Wherever we go it will be rock hard.

“We’ll have to be mindful of things like blisters stopping lads from training, but it is what it is.

“We can’t turn it off, and we’re not going to train in the early hours of the morning just to lose a few degrees of heat.”

Defender Alex Honeyball, midfielders Ben Garrity and Lewis Nightingale and strikers Richard Brodie and Josh Amis will be among the new faces when the players regroup.

More potential signings have been invited to train with the squad, but Carden says he is wary of “flooding” his team with triallists.

He says anybody brought into the group on trial will be there “for a reason” and that players from the academy run by former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler – with whom Yellows have an official partnership – will also be among the sessions

“I like to get lads in in positions that could strengthen us,” he said.

“We’ve got lads coming in to train this week. I don’t like to flood the squad full of triallists.

“I don’t think it’s fair for lads to waste their time by getting them in just to fill a space in the team in a pre-season friendly.

“There will be a few triallists, but they will be here for a reason.”