OXFORD United’s training camp in Spain will be no holiday for the players next week, according to manager Pep Clotet.

The squad fly out to Barcelona on Sunday and will undergo warm-weather training until next Friday.

They were able to make the trip due to a ten-day gap in fixtures caused by the side’s first round exit in the Emirates FA Cup at Port Vale earlier this month.

But while some may see a break in the sun as a reward, for Clotet the extra time spent together simply makes the camp a more efficient use of the time.

He said: “Normally I don’t work on a system of rewarding and punishing, I don’t understand that because life isn’t like that.

“I work on a system of planning and using time to the best of our ability. In every situation we have we try to maximise it.

“I think it’s a good idea to get the players to spend as much time as possible together and combine that with good training.

“It’s not because we’re out of the FA Cup we’re going on holiday, it’s the opposite.”

It is the third camp since Clotet took charge in July, following a pre-season trip to Portugal and a midweek stay at the Gibraltar Barracks in Surrey during September.

Several players were signed after the stay in the Algarve, while a more recent change has been with the captain.

And Clotet believes it will be useful for John Mousinho, who has inherited the armband due to Curtis Nelson’s Achilles injury, to put his stamp on the team.

He said: “I think it will be good for Mousinho as a new captain to get his bonding with the lads and his ideas across.”