Furious Mark Warburton has hit out at the make up of the BetFred League Cup.
Sevco open their campaign away to Motherwell on July 16 followed by matches against Annan Athletic, Lowland League side East Stirlingshire and Stranraer.
The new look format has been warmly welcomed across the Scottish game giving clubs valuable match practice ahead of the league campaign rather than a procession of pre-season friendlies.
Warbo, who used to work as a high powered city trader, moaned his way throughout last season and hasn’t held back as he slaughtered the League Cup fixture schedule.
“We face four games in nine days, we play 16th, 19th, 22nd and the 25th with the hardest one first,” he moaned about the opening match at Fir Park. “Any team would like to have probably a five or six-game pre-season programme building up in quality and intensity.
“We are going to play Charleston Battery for a warm-up game — and it is just 45 minutes for two separate 11s and then the next match is Motherwell.
“I just find it, for us, far from ideal. I am being very polite saying that.
“So you go to high quality opposition then face Burnley on the 30th. Look at the actual details, as a squad of players in pre-season the idea is to try and get a six-week period but when you have that many games it’s play, recover, play, recover, play, recover.
“There’s no work being done. You’re not doing style of play. You’re not working on tactical aspects or your specific parts of your game. Why four games in nine days?”
Most managers with a weekly wage budget that dwarfs the annual budgets of Stranaer, Annan and East Stirling would be quite happy with those sort of fixtures but it seems that the former Brentford chief thinks differently.
Warbo hasn’t yet recorded his delight at signing 34-year-old goalkeeper Matt Gilks on a free transfer. When 37-year-old Clint Hill signed Warbo refused to comment with the club website lifting quotes from Harry Redknapp to proclaim the swoop.