SWINDON Town begin pre-season training on Wednesday – and manager Michael Flynn is expecting his players to return in near-perfect shape or face losing a percentage of their wages straight away.

The Town squad have enjoyed 51 days off since their final League Two fixture on May 8 but are about to be worked incredibly hard under the watchful eye of their new boss.

They will undergo testing on the first day – while collecting their new training gear – before the footballs are rolled out towards the end of the week, supplementing the significant amount of running which is set to take place.

Explaining how the first few days of pre-season will look, Flynn said: “We’re going to do a few bits of testing [on Wednesday].

“Thursday and Friday, they’ll be straight into working hard. But the balls will always be out from literally the second or third day because, fortunately, players looking after themselves during the off-period and they come back in fairly good shape.

“It’s not like the old days where they’ve put on two stone, and you’ve got to run them around town in a bin bag for an hour just to get them down to a suitable weight.”

The Town boss then warned his squad - with a knowing smile on his face as he did so - that they better have behaved responsibly over their summer break or risk paying an early penalty.

Flynn continued: “They all return in fairly good shape, and some of them come back in even better shape than when they left.

“The ones who haven’t, they’ll be fined because I’ve got all their weights and their body-fat percentages from the end of the season!”

As pre-season builds, not only will players become fitter but relationships will build – an aspect that Flynn is looking forward to as he begins to understand which type of characters he has available to him.

Asked what he is looking forward to finding out as the summer period progresses, Flynn said: “The one thing, for me, is how they react in adversity.

“Because everybody can be on top of the world when things are going well or things are easy. We’ll find out who sticks together and who doesn’t, but from the conversations I’ve had, I don’t think that will be a problem.

“Until we get there, and they’re on one of their last, toughest runs, we won’t know who is one of the quick ones who might turn around and go back to support one of the slower ones. That will show a sign of togetherness.

“I’m so glad I’ve got the pre-season with them because you can hammer home your beliefs and really cement that into the players’ minds.”