Reds' unusual schedule continues with Lancashire training camp next week

David Flitcroft will ask his players to spend more time away from their families in the build-up to the FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City next week.

The squad will spend Tuesday night at a hotel in Burnley before a lengthy press conference on Wednesday morning. They will then move on to a training camp near Blackburn where they will train for two days ahead of the televised Etihad encounter.

Flitcroft told the Chronicle: “We will go to a training ground and play against different opposition on Thursday and Friday next week.

“As a group we watched Manchester City against Chelsea on Sunday and they’re breathtaking. It’s a fixture that will hit you with fear if you allow it but you don’t know what will happen if you go at them."

The players jetted off to Malaga on Sunday for a three-day training camp after the defeat to Bristol City and returned to Britain on Wednesday to prepare for the visit of Bolton tomorrow. They also had a four-day stint at a hotel in preparation for the MK Dons and Wolves games.

Flitcroft said: “It’s something we’ve always wanted to do for the last 18 months. We’ve waited until we’ve got into this real trouble to push the boat out and tried to look at different ways of being together as a group.

“Sometimes being together for seven days a week in the same environment can work against you so we’ve tried to come up with different ideas and use every tool available to us. I’ve told the board that it might not be that we have to spend fortunes on players but we could spend a certain amount on different stimuli and see what the current players are willing to do.

“Let’s see if a player is willing to get up at 7am for an 8am training session. Sacrifice is what’s needed to stay in this football league.“We’ve done things like set up cinema rooms in hotels for them to watch the opposition on DVD and these kinds of motivational things can help.

“We played MK Dons on the Saturday and then, probably for the first time in the club’s history, spent the Saturday night in a hotel watching a DVD of Wolves. Players don’t sleep well after games so we set-up the DVD to prepare for the next game. The players haven’t seen much of their families and it’s been relentless. “But you have to work hard if you are to find solutions and answers.”