Swansea City are back at work, the players have already gone through the initial tests they all need to endure as pre season training commences. A pre season swans boss Russell Martin has longed for is now with us. The club offers some of the best facilities in the football league network at Fairwood, and you can throw in many premier league clubs as well.

When it comes to fine margins regards the health and well being of swans players, there is an exacting protocol backed up by experts who analyse their every move. Talking to the official website Matt Willmott head of physical performance is delighted to have a full run up to the new season, “It’s certainly nice for us to have joined in from the start of pre-season this year, having come in right at the end a year ago,” said Willmott, who previously worked at MK Dons and Leicester City. Pre-season gives you a massive foundation to build on for the season. With the way we play, it’s a distinct style that requires a specific physical condition, so a block of five or six weeks to put that work into the players gives us a great base to build on”

And not only that Steve Cooper continues to have an influence on this pre season as he did the last. Even though last seasons team building, conditioning and stamina training was a part of Cooper’s strategy last July, he was already at loggerheads with the club as we exclusively revealed just two days after the Wembley defeat to Brentford last year.

That article is here –>
Click the link Steve Cooper Exclusive

Cooper was determined to give the swans the best start to the new season he could and the facilities at Pennyhill Park in Surrey, the home of England Rugby Union Training were selected. It was a complete success, so much so Russell Martin has seen the benefits of yet another visit this pre season. The two thousand seven hundred square metre facility includes a large 40m x 40m artificial indoor pitch area and state-of-the-art gymnasium suitable for international standard training, together with ancillary changing rooms, physiotherapy suite and sports equipment storage. It’s not a cheap option and a glance at the nightly rates for the customer in the street range from £600 to £900 a night.

Recommended to Cooper by ex Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers the training spaces are considered the best in the country and many top teams in the premier league have all utilised the facilities. It will be a week of cognitive recall of the precise way Russell Martin wants his team to play, the outright possession model we saw last season will be a major feature. Physically and holistically head of medical Dr Jezz McCluskey reminds us of the range of treatments and tests that will be implemented. “It’s all about identifying anything that may be a problem, and making sure it does not become a problem. It’s a totally holistic approach. It’s about managing their workloads, we want to make sure we do that right and these measurements allow us to address anything that needs addressing at the earliest opportunity.”

To be able to do that within the exceptional facilities of Pennyhill Park cannot really fail during the coming week. It’s ideal timing as well, getting the players together in such superb surroundings so early in pre season projects some well thought out planning by the current Swansea City training staff. Harry Darling the latest addition to the squad will also travel today. As the week progresses we will have our own reports on how everything is going and photographs from our licensed provider Action Images.

There is still some way to go but these next six weeks are exactly what Russell Martin wanted, and he has got it. With another two players expected to sign shortly as the real hard work begins it is going to be an exciting and revealing time before the season starts. As ever we will endeavour to bring you as much as we can on Swansea Independent.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

Swansea City Polls