Newcastle United players are not yet back in training at Benton, but there is a reason why they have all been hard at work in locations across the globe in recent weeks. Still scarred from the shuttle runs last summer, the squad know this could be their most gruelling pre-season yet as Eddie Howe prepares to whip his side into shape for an assault on four competitions.
Howe has said, himself, that Newcastle 'don't want to go too far away from what we've done' after his high-intensity side qualified for the Champions League, but the Magpies boss is 'realistic enough to know there are more games and that's a bigger challenge'. That is an understatement.
Newcastle played 46 matches last season and the black-and-whites will contest the same number of fixtures this time around - before you even factor in whether they progress in the cups or make it into the last 16 of the Champions League.
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That is why pundit Jamie Carragher has not backed Newcastle to finish in the top four this season after the Magpies previously enjoyed the 'huge bonus' of not having midweek European games. Yet that is far from a foregone conclusion.
Few are better placed to comment on that than Paul Balsom, Sweden's performance manager and the head of UEFA fitness for football advisory group. Balsom also previously served as Leicester's head of performance innovation for nearly a decade, including when the Foxes competed in the Champions League after winning the Premier League in 2016.
"The Champions League takes organisational tasks up to another level," he told ChronicleLive. "But from the contact I've had with the head of performance [Dan Hodges] at Newcastle, and knowing the manager from the outside, it's a challenge they are more than ready to accept."
Challenge is one word for it, all right. In fact, between August 12 and December 30, Newcastle could end up playing 29 games in three competitions in just 140 days if Howe's side reach the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup.
As obvious as it sounds, Howe will have to dip into his squad. Hence the need to bring in further quality additions following Sandro Tonali's arrival from AC Milan.
After all, the depth of the group was previously exposed when Howe last made sweeping changes, back in January, and Newcastle were knocked out of the FA Cup by a Sheffield Wednesday side playing in League One at the time. It is rather telling, then, that Howe named 11 unchanged line-ups in the top-flight last season and made just 54 changes to his starting XI over the course of 38 games.
For context, on the way to winning the treble, Pep Guardiola did not name a single unchanged side in the Premier League while the City boss made nearly twice as many changes (106) as Howe thanks to a much deeper squad. As well as having to keep players happy, Guardiola simply had to rotate to ensure everyone stayed fresh because fixture congestion, obviously, increases the risk of injuries.
Newcastle will already be well-aware of that and the Magpies have long worked with Orreco, the world-leading bio-analytics firm, who feed in objective data to help support the club's decision-making process with player recovery. It is important to stress that Orreco are just a small piece of the jigsaw, but the Irish company have a lot of experience managing travel and recovery, say, in the NBA, where teams can play three or four times a week and travel four or five hours through different time zones.
That background could yet prove invaluable and it is worth pointing out that Newcastle did thrive in multiple competitions last season with a relatively shallow pool of players. In fact, 11 individuals played in 87% of Newcastle's games in the Premier League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup.
These players were able to sustain high outputs throughout the campaign and when it comes to distance covered, high-speed running, high turnovers, pressed sequences and passes per defensive action, Newcastle scored some of the best figures in the Premier League. However, there is a reason why life at Europe's top table will bring with it a whole new test.
"The one that people miss is the challenge of playing at home or away on a Saturday or Sunday and then having to travel somewhere far with a long flight," Balsom added. "You could have some time differences.
"You either stay the night of the Champions League game or you may fly home straight after the game, which a lot of clubs do, but then you're not back in your bed until four or five o'clock on a Wednesday or Thursday morning. Then you have got a Premier League fixture at the weekend.
"Also, you're scouting for the team you play in the Premier League and, then, suddenly, you have got another team you have never played again on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Most analysts work overtime, but you are working overtime to find information about a team you are not familiar with. On the back of that, you have got another team in the Premier League at the weekend - not just to scout but to prepare for both tactically and physically as well."
Even that preparation work sounds exhausting, but you suspect this will be a challenge Howe et al will relish rather than fear.
