Jones to give his players a full 90 against Norwich

When facing Chesham and St Albans in the last week, Jones utilised his squad in hour and 30 minutes sessions, but should change that against the Canaries at Kenilworth Road tonight.

He said: “We’ll go 90, 90 probably now with two games to go, get them right up and then anyone who needs a top up has the Bedford game (next Tuesday).

“We’re looking to be right at it for the first game of the season and then to keep moving forward and peaking as the games continue.

“We’re at a good level, we haven’t picked up many injuries this pre-season, a few little niggles, but that’s about it, so it’s been a real fruitious pre-season.

“It’s where you get your fitness levels that god willing last you for the season.

“It’s like building a house, you lay the foundations now well and if they’re good foundations, you’re going to have a good stability all through the season and that’s what we’re doing.

“They’re a good group, they work hard, they need a bit of structure now and again, but it’s a good group.”

On stepping up the level of opposition now after facing just non-league sides on domestic soil so far, with Notts County also up on Saturday as well, Jones said: “We wanted a variation in the tests, but we did the same last year.

“We played Leicester and Scunthorpe last game of pre-season, so we’re entering into an important time now, we’ll shorten the training slightly, freshen it up, sharpen it up and then be ready to go.

“We like to build up the tests, you don’t tend to play teams from your own level in pre-season ironically enough so you want good tests.

“We didn’t want to play two Championships side, we wanted to play one and a League Two side, a very strong one and last year Notts County recruited very, very well.

“They’ll be a stern test, they’ll be an equivalent to a League One test, so that’s why we do that and Norwich is a different kind of test again.

“We like to have a big game as well, something different for the fans to have, but a real good test for us, and that’s why we had Leicester last year.

“We’ve got Norwich this year and then we tend to build things up.

“We started with Hitchin and have built things up and then the only thing a little bit out of sync is the game we had away (against Rijeka) which we specifically picked as we felt they were a top Croatian side, we worked a lot out of possession and we felt we’d get that test.”