Everton's coaches are employing a fitness technique they developed to help Luka Modric at Real Madrid.
Francesco Mauri, the club's head of physical conditioning, has had a sandpit installed at the Blues' Finch Farm training ground as an additional strength and conditioning tool at their disposal.
Mauri says he utilised a sand pit at Real Madrid when trying to find ways of improving the leg strength of Croatian playmaker Modric.
“It is a methodology we like a lot," he said.
“When you sprint or change direction on the sand, you have to produce much more strength.
“It is not something you can use for all the players – but for some players it is very good to use this kind of stimulus.
“You can do a lot of different exercises; use it for injury prevention, it is good for ankles, for balance and proprioception exercises.
“And for strength and metabolic drills.
“You have to analyse the history of the players and choose the ones who can benefit from these kinds of exercises.
“At Madrid, for example, we had Luka Modric… he had big leg muscles and a lot of strength.
“To find specific exercises on the pitch for him was very difficult.
“On the sand, he could develop a lot of strength.
“We could work with him to create lactic acid and increase his anaerobic threshold (the point when the body’s aerobic system is unable to keep up with the body’s energy demand).
"We have used this method everywhere. In Naples they already had the sand.
"In other clubs we asked to build it, it is not a big project, just to create a space full of sand."
Everton have confirmed that Mason Holgate and Fabian Delph are training fully, ahead of the weekend's opening pre-season game with Blackpool, but Yerry Mina has yet to rejoin the group.
All three missed the end of the season through injury.
