Nigel Pearson has provided insight into the difficulties of transforming his team into a high-energy side, emphasising that being able to outrun teams will prove a staple to success going forward.
Injuries have been an ongoing issue over the years at the club including during Lee Johnson and Dean Holden's reign. Improving fitness levels were therefore among the key priorities since Pearson's arrival in February 2021 and he believes they have made big and important strides in ensuring players recover quickly and remain injury-free.
Having maintained their counter-attacking prowess that proved so successful towards the end of last season, City are showing signs of a side that are adapting to play high-pressure football, especially in forward positions. An added youthfulness has contributed to that with the emergence of Tommy Conway and Sam Bell, while the departure of Chris Martin in January also emphasised the subtle change of direction the club is moving in.
Injuries will always be part and parcel of the game and City have had their fair share this season. Kal Naismith has faced two difficult spells on the sidelines with a calf injury, Tomas Kalas has struggled with knee issues all season while Kane Wilson was also forced to undergo surgery on his knee.
Serious ACL injuries to Rob Atkinson and Ayman Benarous have been unprecedented but Pearson used Joe Williams as an example of how they are improving in the medical and fitness department. The midfielder was limited to 22 league appearances last season and one prior to that with reoccurring hamstring injuries but he's featured 32 times in the Championship this time around.
"It’s been the priority since I’ve been here (improving the fitness)," Pearson said. "I don’t want to go over old ground but what I would say is there’s a lot of players who were undertrained and one of the cycles you can get into is you pick injuries up because players are either over-trained, because they’ve done too much and have fatigued or they haven’t done enough so they’re not robust enough. So if they’ve broken before, they’ll probably break again.
"That is not a quick fix. You’ve got to and it depends how you want to deliver that. We deliver it in a way that is more about educating the players about themselves and for them to have the opportunity to understand themselves better and decide that they want to improve.
"We’ve still had injuries but we’ve dealt with it pretty and well and players have recovered quickly. Even people like Joe Williams has had a difficult time with injury since he’s been at the football club, his availability over the last two seasons has been quite remarkable and he’s in a much better position physically as an athlete now and that’s what it's about."
City's recruitment this season will focus on signing players who fit into the category of young, hungry players from lower leagues who can sustain the rigours of playing relentless Championship football. As Tommy Conway previously mentioned, Pearson wants his players to give their all from the first whistle and if they tire after an hour, he has the options from the bench to sustain the intensity.
The club remain in discussions with Aberdeen over 25-year-old Ross McCrorie who will provide competition for places in defence, midfield and at right-back while 21-year-old centre-back Jake O'Brien and 21-year-old left-back Jack Currie are also targets.
"When you recruit players the profile we’re looking for is what we’ve got now," Pearson added: "We need players who are able to sustain the levels of work at high intensity and that’s the key thing the modern game is about pace and power, so we don’t really want to look to add players who don’t fit into that profile.
"We know that we have a way to go to be challenging as a top six side but what you need to be able to do is outrun teams and if you can outrun teams or at least match them, we couldn’t match them (Burnley) earlier this season, although we gave them a decent game.
"The system was different, but today (Saturday) we looked pretty strong right the way to the end. Those are areas that we’ve improved and there’s a lot of hard work that goes into that from many of the staff and a buy-in from the players.”
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