Calderwood: Early return could hinder Hibs' pre-season plans

The new campaign will start on July 23, a full three weeks earlier than this season, as league bosses attempt to help Scottish clubs involved in European action and to cut the number of midweek matches during the winter months.

The English Premier League will adhere to a mid-August start date with the Football League kicking off a week earlier, a situation which, Calderwood conceded, will make it difficult to line up opposition from south of the border as he fine-tunes his squad.

Last summer Hibs visited both Carlisle and Blackpool, while a year earlier matches in Belfast and Dublin were followed by fixtures against Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers.

However, the disparity between kick-off dates on either side of the border will, Calderwood admitted, cause problems in either lining up a glamour pre-season friendly at Easter Road against English opposition or travelling south to play.

Revealing he had "a mini blueprint" in mind for his players – who will return for the start of pre-season training on Monday, June 20 – the Hibs manager said: "The start makes it awkward, more or less, to play English teams.

"We have a mini blueprint in mind that we want to try to get to but it's just "dotting" them off and confirming fixtures and when we want them. But that will dictated to by the schedule that we want to put out.

"It's there in the background, it's just trying to get a plan to get away if we can to have some sort of training camp and then trying to find out what English clubs would be available to come for a pre-season friendly and also if we could go down there.

"That's the sort of work we are doing at the minute, to see what teams would be willing to play."

Although the start date has been pulled forward quite considerably – next season's fixtures will be unveiled on June 17 – Calderwood believes his players will still have sufficient time to recover from the rigours of this season before beginning to prepare to do it all over again.

He said: "It's ten weeks so whether it's five on and five off or four on and six off there will be enough recovery time and time to prepare."

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Hibs midfielder Lewis Stevenson has penned a new one-year deal with the club.

While Stevenson will be remaining at Easter Road, Calderwood has confirmed Steven Thicot, Kevin McBride, Colin Nish, Valdas Trakys, John Rankin, Kevin McCann, Thomas Flynn, Kurtis Byrne, Ewan Moyes and the on-loan Darryl Duffy will all be leaving at the end of the season.

The news will come as no surprise to Hibs fans with the departure of most having already been flagged up over the past few weeks.

However, Hibs have revealed discussions with other players out-of-contract shortly, presumably Derek Riordan, Liam Miller, Francis Dickoh, Graham Stack and Sean Welsh, are "on-going" with up-dates on the progress of these discussions to follow.