Pre-season preparation goes up a notch this week as the Town head to their annual training camp in Slovenia – and midfielder Jordan Clark can’t wait.

The midfielder, who admitted he’d never even heard of Slovenia before his first trip, is now looking forward to returning once more for a week which will include two friendlies, beginning with the first against Ukrainian side Rukh Lviv on Tuesday afternoon (14:00 BST).

“If you’d have said to me before I came here that we’re going to Slovenia on a pre-season trip I’d have thought you must be joking!” said the 30-year-old.

“I’d never heard of it, never been to Slovenia and never heard of anyone who’s been to Slovenia, but it’s one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever seen, so it’s really good place for pre-season.

“We’re all in a hotel together, there’s a little village, the people are nice and friendly and e’ve got nice facilities for the training ground. You get your bikes and you can bike around up to the lakes, have a coffee together – it’s a really good place to get the new lads integrated, to be together and just bounce off each other all the time.

“There’s double sessions pretty much every day, so there’s a lot of work out there but it’s enjoyable, really hot as well, so looking forward to it.”

The trip to Slovenia comes quickly off the back of Saturday’s friendly with Danish top-flight side AGF in which Clark featured for 69 minutes the 2-1 defeat at The Brache.

“They were a good side, a little bit ahead of us in terms of our pre-season, were very sharp and very strong, so it was a good game,” said Clark.

“They came and had a right go against us but I thought we did well. I thought we started a bit slow, but then we started to get into the game but it’s just getting the fitness in really. We wanted to win – that’s what we set our target as, winning the game and having that winning mentality, so it’s disappointing in that respect to lose.

“However, we’ve just got to take as much fitness as you can. The lads are getting more minutes, a few more players had minutes, so the main one is the sharpness now, and the manager driving home the standards he wants in training and then putting them into these games in pre-season.

“We’ve got a few more games coming up in Slovenia and then a couple more when coming back, so we’re just looking forward to it.”