Changes made at training ground as Sheffield Wednesday injury investigation continues

Darren Moore has spoken at length this season about the testing players have and will continue to undertaken as the Owls look to prevent the sort of injury crisis that disrupted so much of last season.

Moore said in November that the injury-torn state of the Wednesday squad was the worst he’d ever seen in 30 years in the game and vowed to go about launching an investigation into the club’s history with injury issues.

Individual training programmes have been designed for each player, with ‘red flag’ issues identified, with attempts made to address these issues in each of those programmes.

Wednesday have embraced yoga as a prominent part of their training efforts to enhance muscle recovery.

And a range of other changes have been made at Middlewood Road in recent weeks, including dietary tweaks in the club canteen, use of newly-installed facilities for post-match recovery and the re-laying of pitches to ensure they are closer in feel to that at Hillsborough stadium.

“One of the surfaces was harder compared to the other,” Moore said when asked to expand on the changes made to playing surfaces at the training ground.

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“That was looked upon in great detail and in terms of managing the pitches.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard on both the training ground surface and at the stadium and I can report the training ground pitches are in good order.

“Credit to the groundstaff, we’re all working together as best as we possibly can at every level.

“It’s something we identified. We’re trying to prevent those things [injuries] from happening as best as we can.”

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Fan frustration has reared its head at the fact that three of the club’s new signings have suffered injuries so far this season.

Will Vaulks appears to have overcome a pre-season niggle, but Michael Smith is back in the treatment room after suffering a knock and Akin Famewo faces an extended spell out having hobbled out of his debut at MK Dons on Saturday.

And while work goes on to ensure these injuries don’t become a regular occurrence, Moore was keen to stress that there is little to be done to guard against impact injuries.

“It’s about making sure we’re getting maximum usage [of the space],” he told The Star.

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“We’ve upgraded the sports science in terms of nutrition, the strengthening programme, getting rest and recovery.

“All these things have been taken into heavy consideration in terms of prevention not cure.

“We’ve made changes with certain food that provides certain things for the body.

“We’re not doing anything different at Sheffield Wednesday to what other clubs are doing, but we’ve identified things in the club we have changed to make sure we’re doing the best we possibly can.

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“One of the things that is unavoidable is contact injuries. Those are the things we have no control over because it’s a high-level, competitive game. Though we’re doing what we’re doing, we can’t take away that contact side of things in training and in games.”