The last training stint we had on foreign soil was in 2009 when Mark McGhee took the boys to Austria but with the Champions league qualifiers lying ahead the club took the view that a few days with no distractions would offer the best road to fitness.
The recent spell of wet weather has rendered Lanarkshire's outdoor training facilities less than perfect and the sense of the move to warmer climes appears to be correct.
James McFadden will not be travelling with his training mates but he will rejoin them on their return. The Sun quote him saying, “I will train with the team up until they go to Portugal. I’ll keep myself ticking over when they are away and hopefully I can hook up with them again when they get back."
Kenny Black is aware of the challenges that face the team that finished third in the last campaign and told the Wishaw press, “The standard of the players’ fitness last year was really good and we will probably have the same kind of training programme as last season which we started very well but obviously we need to take into account European competition."
Nicky Law chipped in “It’s a great gesture by the club to take us all away and it will be great to train in the sun. I played at Sheffield United and the furthest we ever went on a pre-season trip was Ireland! It will be a nice break but we will be working hard and it will set us up for the European games."
When the team returns they will have a further week's training before they travel to Somerset Park on Saturday 14 July for the first pre-season friendly against Ayr United.