WEYMOUTH boss Bobby Wilkinson intends to play pre-season friendlies with nine or ten men at various stages this summer.

His thinking behind the idea is to simulate conditions during the regular season, should Weymouth have players sent off or injured having made all three substitutions.

And there will be full respect shown to the opposition, with Wilkinson set to inform counterparts of his plans when he feels ready to deploy the scenario.

Whether he uses the exercise at Wimborne tomorrow (3pm) remains to be seen, however.

Wilkinson told Echosport: “People will find this unbelievable, and not many people see me do it, but I’ll play one or two friendlies with only nine or ten men.

READ MORE: Weymouth discover first opponents of 2023/24 season

“We’ll start with 11 but by half-time I might go down to ten men, then with half an hour to go, go down to nine because that happens in the season.

“It’s all about fitness. What are we going to do when we’re all over the place?

“I’ve done that for many, many years and it’s always worked. What I love about it is people don’t notice that we do it.

“I always let the opposition know I’m going to do it, I always show them respect. If you play with ten players, someone has to be out of position.

“Straight away, it’s how you organise teams. Guess what? Three or four times during the season you have to play with ten men.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re ready. There could be five, six, seven or eight players that you want to get a bit more fitness in a game.

“You take your two fittest players off and put on the ones that need to run more.”