Crewe Alexandra boss David Artell has paid tribute to his medical and sports science department for their outstanding injury record last season. The Alex only really lost Paul Green due to his serious knee injury and Harry Pickering to a hernia problem for any length of time and Artell is hoping for repeat this time around.
Artell says that foundation work we are currently putting into pre-season will assist in us not picking up niggling muscle injuries when he kick off again on 3rd August.
The players have been in twice a week over the summer to work on their fitness levels and are now enduing six days weeks over the pre-season.
The Crewe Alexandra boss told us: “We did a review of last season and we lost 676 days to injury.
“That’s not a lot, the average is a lot higher according to a long-term FIFA study.
“Why is that? Because we are fitter, stronger and older. It comes down to those fitness levels and mentality, and the fact we scored a lot of late goals also shows we were fitter.
“That was down in no small part to Mark Cornish – he has now left us but been replaced by Owen (Clarke) who worked under him and can carry that on – and Liam Anderson the sports scientist.
“Liam is always part of our discussions about what we are doing in training.
“On Monday he came to me and said there were five players who are significantly lower in their scores than the rest of the group. So they had to do extra.
“It doesn’t happen by fluke, and it doesn’t happen by saying ‘just run until I say stop’.
“The club has invested in GPS equipment so we get lots of data, and you educate the players.
He added: “The players know we aren’t going to flog them to death, there is research and science behind it.”