Traditionally pre season sees a football club slowly build up their intensity and quality of opposition until the weekend before the League season starts, when they finally get somewhere near their first team playing a semi serious game, but not this year.

Normally the weekend before the start of the League season, Saints would play a home pre season friendly against a top flight European side, in which the fans would finally get a whiff of what the manager was thinking in terms of his strongest side.

This year we started pre season in the usual manner, low key friendlies where most of the squad is used and more about getting match fitness and blowing out the cobwebs.

But it seems we have been stuck at that format since the opening fixture against Eastleigh, the opposition has been German 3rd tier at best and in each game we have mixed and matched the squad in each half of the game.

Only 3 have been open to the public, with several others behind closed doors, including last Saturdays late announcement that we would be playing Munster in the morning as well as the afternoon.

Although I would not be surprised if another behind closed doors friendly was played next week, with our opening game up at Watford not being played till Sunday, we do have a little more leeway to do this.

You feel that Tonda Eckert does have a plan, but it is different from the conventional pre season build up.

That could be driven by the fact that the Carabao Cup 1st round is being played the weekend before the EFL season starts and not in the midweek after as it was last season.

So I think that Tonda is about to get serious, that he sees Saturday's game at Colchester United as more the final pre season fixture, than a cup game, however as strange as it seems, I think that means that he will treat it differently that he might have if it was being played after the opening League game.

This means that he will be putting out something near what he sees as his strongest line up, that he will be putting out the likes of Cyle Larin who has yet to play a game in pre season and perhaps even Finn Azaz.

This contrasts with previous years when the Carabao Cup first round has often seen virtual second sides fielded, as was the case at Gillingham 3 years ago when Russell Martin seemed to be making a point to a few members of his squad and the fans.

But this year it seems might be different and Tonda Eckert might well see this as the next step forward in pre season as the Championship opening fixture looms and that means getting serious.

All Photos Via Reuters