Ipswich players are to take part in a four-day `warm-weather training programme' as part of their preparations for the upcoming season.

The Town squad will return for pre-season training on Thursday and will head to Portugal next week as part of boss Roy Keane's plans to improve team bonding and fitness, with recently recruited Spanish sports scientist Antonio Gomes also making the trip.

"The training camp fits in well with what I see as a good build-up to the new season," Keane told the Evening Star. "Things have moved on from the days when players would come back and run up hills for 10 miles.

"There is more of a scientific approach to pre-season now and I've moved with the times in that respect. With players having seven or eight weeks off, you do have to be careful with injuries - the tendons, muscle tissue, fibres - so we will build up nicely.

"But I've also got a bit of an old school approach in me as well. Sometimes during the next six weeks it will come down to doing some running at our training ground."