Peterborough United’s luxury training camp and a friendly arranged with a Championship club

Posh had planned to travel to Portugal for warm weather training, but concerns over travel because of the coronavirus pandemic prompted a re-think.

Now first-team manager Darren Ferguson and his players will head to Burton-on-Trent for five days to take advantage of a complex that houses multiple practice pitches as well as state of the art training facilities used by 27 England teams.

There is a also a four star Hilton Hotel and a luxury health club and spa on site.

The first-team squad started pre-season training this week after players and staff passed two lots of testing for Covid-19.

Posh have also organised seven pre-season friendlies, the last of which will be against League One champions Coventry City at the Weston Homes Stadium.

Posh expect the 2020-21 League One season to start on September 12 with a first round Carabao Cup tie scheduled for September 5 and a Leasing.com Trophy game possibly taking place on September 8/9.

Posh expect to receive the fixture list for the new season in the middle of August.

“I’m coming over to the UK next week to oversee a few things,” Posh co-owner Darragh MacAnthony revealed in the latest episode of his ‘Hard Truths’ podcast.

“I’m excited to see the players back in pre-season training and I’m excited about taking them to St George’s Park.

“The manager wanted the players back for an eight week pre-season and I was happy to grant him that. We must be the only League One team back in training already and I hope we see the benefits.

“We’ve had to test the players and staff twice already and we will test them weekly at a cost of £7k each time, but I do understand testing will be stopped very soon.

“We were supposed to know the start date for next season for sure by now, but now we expect to hear on Friday and I have it on good authority it will be September 12 with a Carabao Cup tie to be played before then.

“The EFL fixtures will be worked out when the Premier League season finishes so I’m expecting to see the League One schedule in the middle of August.

“I’m pleased we have a friendly sorted with Coventry.

“We wanted to play a Championship club who play good football and Coventry fit that bill.”