Elgin City manager Gavin Price is confident the Black and Whites will be ready for action whenever they are given a start date to resume their League Two campaign.
City have not played since their 4-0 win over Civil Service Strollers on December 26, with the bottom two divisions having been suspended earlier this month following the national lockdown.
Clubs in League One and League Two have held talks with the Scottish FA in recent days after submitting a route to playing document, which would see a return to training on February 15 and matches restarting on March 2, with clubs committing to Covid-19 testing.
Although the return to action remains unclear, Price says his players are adhering to personalised programmes in an attempt to ensure they can quickly resume playing.
Price said: “It’s very difficult, but the guys have got programmes to do to keep themselves fit.
“We are possibly at a slight advantage to other teams because we are used to dealing with logistics around geography.
“The guys have all got apps they can use to report what they are doing.
“We get them together over Zoom once a week to do yoga and things like that. It’s good to just get them all together to have a wee chat about what’s going on.
“It’s difficult just now – any manager will say the same. We are trying to plan, but we don’t know if it’s for two weeks or four weeks or longer.
“I don’t want to put too much intense pressure on the players just now, but we need to keep them at a level of fitness.
“Once we get a date set in stone, we can tailor our programme to hopefully sharpen them all up for coming back.
“That is something we have dealt with quite successfully over the years, so it’s not something that fazes us.”
Elgin have remained proactive despite the shutdown, with Price last week signing up midfielder Brian Cameron on a new deal until 2024.
Cameron joins a number of players who have committed their long-term future to Borough Briggs in recent weeks, including Kane Hester, Thomas McHale and Matthew Cooper.
Price says work to tie down more members of the squad remains ongoing, and he said: “The club has worked really hard. We have had a real forward-thinking policy over the last two seasons in keeping the good players we have got together.
“The club has got to be commended for that as well. We now have a number of key players tied up on long-term deals. I see that continuity as vital to the success of the club.
“We don’t want to make too many changes every season.
“There are players I am keeping my eye on that I would like to add to that, but we want to keep this squad together as much as possible.
“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks there might be one or two more that we can hopefully tie down on longer term deals.
“A lot of key players have already done that, but there are more there that are a big part of the squad.
“I don’t see any reason to make sweeping changes.”
Price feels the longevity of the present squad is crucial in him implementing his desired style of play, and he added: “We want to create a culture around the club that people know, which can hopefully give us that springboard to continue developing.
“I think there is a culture about how we play, with an attacking style that we have at the club.
“The players fall into that with how hard we work as a team, how we train and do things.
“We have got to keep players to maintain that.”
