Groundsman in the final stages of preparations for a new season at Clayton Wood, Stoke City’s training headquarters, and there is another sign that pre-season is just around the corner.

Players’ social media posts are starting to turn from pool pics and beach shots to clips doing their own individual pre pre-season, working with private coaches to try to make sure they impress Steven Schumacher when they walk back through the door in Trent Vale on July 1.

Michael Rose has been out working with personal trainer Kevin Kelly in Glasgow, for example, and doing the kind of sessions he did for more than a month last summer to make sure he was ready to hit the ground running when he joined Stoke as a free agent in mid-July. He explained in a video for Kelly’s website how that kind of work has helped him, touch wood, get on top of groin problems which had interrupted his time at Coventry City.

“I started working with Kevin last summer when I was actually out of contract,” he said. “I had run out of contract at Coventry and was going into the summer without a club. You know what it’s like in the off-season, you’re always doing your individual running and basic stuff but I thought I would need a lot more than that. I noticed that Kevin did a lot of pitch sessions and dribbling sessions and at my previous club I was having a lot of problems with groin injuries so I felt I needed to do a specific programme.

“It really benefitted me. I was always used to going to the gym, on the treadmill, doing straight leg running and stuff like that whereas this was a lot more specific to football and getting your body ready a lot better. In my case, I think I’ve managed to sort out the problem with my groins and I’ve played a lot of games at Stoke. Everything seems to be fine.