With teams retuning for pre-season training, get ready for a whole bunch of stories about players being ‘fitter than ever,’ ‘impressing everyone’ and 'smashing their previous time trial record.'

In pre-season, many a footballer has ‘trained the house down.’ These players won’t be heard from in the actual season.

So to celebrate teams being back, here are some things you really don’t want to hear from your club but are far more likely to be true:

‘We are quite alarmed at the condition the guys have come back in.’

‘The enthusiasm of everyone could be described as low at best.’

‘Some of our stars haven’t even showed up yet. I’m not talking about mentally, I mean physically.’

‘We’re just talking it easy. The season is still ages away.’

‘This first week is really about getting everyone to sober up.’

‘No one has really impressed at all. In fact, it’s been incredibly disappointing and quite dispiriting.’

‘I’m petrified how we’d go in an intra-club match, let alone against another team.’

‘We’ve reported a few players to missing persons.’

‘The way we are training points to a bottom four finish and me being fired by round 11. At best.’

‘Sometimes the fans watching training have to look away. I know some of them are fitter.’

‘It feels bad to have so many of the guys still on the Michelle Bridges twelve week challenge this close to the season.’

‘One guy is taking all our money for the next nine years and the other players resent it a lot.’

‘This ‘no taking drugs’ stuff is a real disruption to how we go about things.’

‘One of our midfielders looks like a boa constrictor that’s swallowed a goat.’

‘Not a single house has been trained down.’

‘Our club doctor may need to become very good at lap band surgeries.’

‘We are not focusing heavily on fitness per se.’

‘Our assistant coaches are currently out training the players by a considerable margin.’

‘We’re just letting the players set their training regime.’

‘We got the footballs out this week and several guys injured themselves using them.’

‘The guy that dresses up as the club mascot won our time trial.’