A look at how Liverpool's pre-season is expected to shape up a week before Arne Slot and his players return to the AXA Training Centre
Liverpool's day now starts at 9:15am and involves lots of team meetings
The Liverpool squad are enjoying their final week off before reporting for pre-season duty at the AXA Training Centre.
Arne Slot and his backroom staff will welcome back their players on Monday July 7 to begin the preparations for next season, as they look to retain the Premier League title they cantered to last time out, winning it with four games to spare and eventually finishing 10 points ahead of Arsenal.
With no major international tournaments this summer, the Reds will have a virtually full contingent available to them from day one next month.
Harvey Elliott and Tyler Morton will be granted additional holiday time following their exertions for England's Under-21 squad in their successful European Championship defence in Slovakia. But that Slot and his staff have a full complement to work with for the entirety of the summer schedule will be viewed as a major boost.
Here, the ECHO takes a closer look at what might await the players at the £50m Kirkby base and who will be out to impress more than most.
A new era at Liverpool last summer brought with it a change in direction for pre-season training and the dreaded lactate test under former boss Jurgen Klopp was swapped last time out for a similarly punishing Six-Minute Race Test (6MRT).
The endurance exam, as the name indicates, lasts for six minutes around a 400m race track with the exercise designed for those undertaking it to go as fast as possible to cover somewhere between 1.5 and 2km.
Jarell Quansah, Conor Bradley and Sepp van den Berg all took part in the run last year, which was overseen by fitness coach Dr Conall Murtagh and head of performance Ruben Peeters alongside Slot.
Curtis Jones and Kostas Tsimikas joined later in the day for their own workout but it was Mohamed Salah who finished top of the pile later that week, impressively proving his endurance and sowing the seeds for a famous campaign that followed.
“It’s important to show your mentality," Salah and Wataru Endo were told by Dr Murtagh last year. "Show the lads how it’s done as leaders in the group.”
It was an instruction Salah listened to as he tore away from the pack to set the pace at the AXA Centre and Slot was keen to personally relay a similar message a few days later, with the Egyptian revealing his head coach pulled him aside to deliver an honest appraisal of what was expected from him for the campaign ahead.
“In pre season, Arne came to see me and asked me to be an example for the other players," Salah told L'Equipe last month. "I told him not to worry because I’m always at my best - not to set an example, but because that’s who I am. He told me what he expected of me in the game, with a lot of responsibilities in running, which I liked.”
Speaking at the beginning of May, Salah told NBC: “In pre-season I remember he got a few clips of me in the warm-up – it’s the warm-up! I was doing like this (keepie-ups) and he was like: ‘What is that? Look at that, you have young players behind you and all of them follow’. He is very honest and speaks to you right away. I think that makes a huge, huge difference.”
It's not just the running drills that have changed under Slot, however. The goalkeeper department, which is now overseen by Fabian Otte, has undergone something of a makeover this summer with the signings of Giorgi Mamardashvili, Armin Pecsi and Freddie Woodman and a new way of working that was introduced for the glovesmen of the AXA Training Centre last summer might be set to continue.
Last year the club's goalkeepers used special glasses designed to limit their field of vision as they went through some routine training drills as a way of improving reactions and confidence in possession.
With the demands on goalkeepers' ball-playing ability becoming increasingly important and prevalent in the modern game, the strategy sees the players put on the eyewear and maintain possession under pressure from coaches and large inflatable mannequins used to represent the opposition.
Liverpool's commercial agreement with Peloton allows the club to benefit from the use of the bespoke exercise bikes inside the gym and the players will be expected to get on the machines and power through in their sessions before moving outdoors for more running and ball work.
The Reds face Preston North End six days into the pre-season schedule at Deepdale before flying out to Hong Kong, where they will meet AC Milan at Kai Tak Sports Park on July 26. From there, the Reds jet to Japan where they are entertained at Nissan Stadium by Yokohama F Marinos on July 30.
Back-to-back friendlies with Athletic Club will be held at Anfield on August 4 before the Community Shield is held on Sunday August 10 against FA Cup holders Crystal Palace at Wembley.
With there being a free week between the Preston friendly and the flight out to the Far East, Liverpool may still look to arrange a behind-closed doors friendly as Slot looks to fine tune his players for their big kick-off at home to Bournemouth on Friday August 15.
New signings Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and goalkeeper Mamardashvili will all naturally want to start off on the right foot and the big-spending summer has already ensured it will be an intriguing schedule for supporters searching for signs that the record-breaking window will prove to be success.
Most eyes will be on £116m Wirtz, who arrives from Bayer Leverkusen as one of the most coveted players in Europe prior to his move to Anfield. Both Bayern Munich and Manchester City had been keen, while Real Madrid, now coached by Wirtz's former coach Xabi Alonso, failed in a late attempt to launch their own charm offensive.
With Trent Alexander-Alexander-Arnold now at Real Madrid, much of the creative onus will fall on Wirtz in an attacking midfield role and a strong showing in pre-season is a must. The same applies to £29m Frimpong, whose versatility and pace on the right side could open new dimensions for Slot's champions.
As for Salah, the uber-professional Egyptian will once more be keen to enjoy a full and uninterrupted summer. The decision to shun the Olympic Games with the Pharaohs in favour of being with the Reds on their tour of the United States was an inspired call in 2024.
As a result, Salah flew out of the traps for Slot's Liverpool and his 29 goals went a long way towards securing the Premier League title.