Hibs reveal Bournemouth friendly refusal amid fears for player safety

The two clubs are set to battle it out at the Marbella Football Center in a pre-season friendly, but the Edinburgh club are concerned about the weather with a heatwave in the south of Spain meaning temperatures could be as high as 40°C when the game kicks off at 6pm local time.

Hibs asked the English Premier League club if they would consider moving it to later that evening, but Bournemouth insist they want it kept at the previously scheduled time.

As a result, Johnson says they’ll potentially push instead for the game to be played out in three 30-minute intervals.

“I asked them if they’d move it to a later time and they didn’t want to,” he told the Daily Record. “Maybe they’ll realise how hot it is going to be at that point when they get there. Potentially we might do a 3x30minute type game, there will definitely be stoppages after 22 and a half minutes for water.

“And it might mean rather than play 60-70minutes with one eleven, I share it about and we go with two 45s. Again, it’s about taking in all the information. We have a couple of lads getting scans so we’ll wait until we get those back and see where we are.”

Johnson went into detail of how the soaring Spanish temperatures have impacted his side’s preparations and how they best equip the players for the season ahead in such conditions.

“We have to deal with different environments. As a footballer playing in the SPFL and Europe you have to deal with all the elements,” he said.

“I remember last year being at Ross County away, freezing, the wind coming in. You have to deal with that. But you also have to be robust enough to deal with heat.

“My sport scientist Colin Clancy told me 10 of them went through four litres of water in an hour and a half, so that shows you how much it is coming out of them as well. I think what we’re trying to do now is replicate our game flow as much as we can.

“So the way we work with Matchday -1, -2, -3 and -4 in a normal season, we’re trying to get the new players into a rhythm of that. So with this heat is you’ll reduce the load in a bid to keep the intensity the same.

“These are the factors we are having to weigh up when we meet every morning, the mileage, the accels, the decels during the day. We’re doing two sessions on the pitch and we’re doing a strength session.

“And we’re having to be be really fluid and flexible. There’s a lot of information that comes in from the players as well, they do questionnaires every day, we get their heart rate and GPS data.

“And also it’s just getting a feel, isn’t it. You talk to the lads, you look in their eyes. So every bit of information will feed into what we do next.”