National League play-off winners face uphill battle to be ready for new EFL season

The winner of the National League play-off final between Torquay United and Hartlepool United has under seven weeks to prepare for the first game of a new season.

While seven weeks may sound like a long time, a lot of EFL clubs will be returning to training next week, while players at Torquay and Hartlepool will have only just finished their season and will now need a break.

Most managers like to have their players in for five or six weeks of pre-season training before a new season starts, meaning the likelihood of a very short break for those involved.

The losing finalist will have longer to prepare. The National League has pushed it’s start date back to August 21st giving a nine week wait, enough for players to have a suitable rest before returning to training ahead of the new campaign.

It is unlikely the play-off winner will receive any special dispensation to do the same given Carabao Cup and Papa John’s Trophy matches will need to be played in the opening month. It is also unlikely the team promoted would want to do this as it would leave them playing catch up from the start.

While Barrow and Harrogate both survived in League Two last season, there is still a gap in quality between the leagues, shown by the fact that both were struggling before Harrogate freshened up their squad in the January transfer window.

They finished 21st and 17th respectively, which shows the scale of the challenge a side promoted to League Two will face next season.

It is likely the clubs will already have pencilled in their games for pre-season, but there is a lot that the winning club will have to do in a short space of time.

The fixtures for the 2021/22 EFL season are released next Thursday, and will be a welcome sight for whichever side regains their Football League status, but this again only highlights the short space of time the club has to prepare.

Most clubs in League Two will have started their recruitment process for the new season as soon as the previous season ended, if not earlier, which would put the play-off winner six weeks behind on transfers assuming their focus has been all on the play-offs.

New additions will be needed, as they are at every club every summer, especially given the short break afforded to those playing in the play-offs.

The National League season has been a long one, and in an ideal world players would have been given a break of over a month, as has been the case with EFL players, but that would leave the play-off winner with just a couple of weeks for pre-season before their opening game.

Both sides are fortunate that they have grass pitches already, and so won’t face a situation like at Harrogate last season where they had to take up their 3G pitch and lay a grass pitch which saw them playing home games in Doncaster for the first month of the season.

Although they will likely want to relay their pitch ahead of the new season anyway, given most clubs do every summer, which would make hosting a pre-season game tough given the timescale available, which could further hinder their preparations if unable to find higher division sides willing to either host them or play at a neutral venue.

Whichever side wins, they will probably fancy their chances of staying in the division if not finishing comfortably, but it will still be a big achievement to do so given the circumstances.

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