General Wolves News

[Kenny]

BTW the E&S are reporting Meritan Shabani suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and Bruno Jordao did his ankle ligaments. Haven't seen any official confirmation.

Nuno told them in his presser before the Watford game

 

[Sniffer]

BTW the E&S are reporting Meritan Shabani suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and Bruno Jordao did his ankle ligaments. Haven't seen any official confirmation.

I didn't have you down as the type to be trolling Kenny, LJ :icon_lol:

 

[Norman Deeley]

BTW the E&S are reporting Meritan Shabani suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and Bruno Jordao did his ankle ligaments. Haven't seen any official confirmation.

What's ankle ligaments then? About 30 bloody years in my case but hopefully 4-6 weeks with Wolves medical team?

 

[Kenny]

What's ankle ligaments then? About 30 bloody years in my case but hopefully 4-6 weeks with Wolves medical team?

Thankfully Joey E&S was good enough to explain this and he told us that ankle ligaments are not as serious as an ACL injury but they generally keep a player out for several weeks....

I would say he will back playing for the U23's before the end of next month

 

[lemonjelly]

I didn't have you down as the type to be trolling Kenny, LJ :icon_lol:

I'd bet a pound to a penny it was he who amended el bandito to housecoat, la

ergo, licence to troll...

(besides, he quite liked me calling him a god not long ago)

 

[Kenny]

Trolling someone who is distracted by the cruel reality of life...

 

[Tony Towner]

I'm not massively convinced by the bigger ground argument. The Steve Bull needs pulling down because it's a dump and if we get an extra couple of k out of that then great. I'd need to see the current demand as more than a blip before I think we need another 10k though. Look at Stoke tonight, 3 years ago they were selling out, now they are down to 20k. After a couple of decent seasons I'm not at the stage to think that couldn't happen again to us.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I think we're levelling off as it is. I can't get rid of tickets at the moment, even if they're free.

35k perhaps and see where we are then.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

We have 7000 on the STH waiting list.

 

[Boozad]

I think we're levelling off as it is. I can't get rid of tickets at the moment, even if they're free.

35k perhaps and see where we are then.

I’ve struggled to move tickets this season as well, didn’t really expect that.

 

[PuntsWolf]

There might be 7k on the W/L but most of them are going to nearly every game anyway. Plus a few of them won’t actually take up the opportunity when it comes anyway, whether that be financial reasons or because we have had a few years mid table.

We never have needed 50k, even if we were finishing top 4 every year.

 

[SSB]

I'd also question if the corporate areas need expansion. There's been plenty of times when the Steve Bull boxes have looked empty this season.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

It’s not so much the boxes as the banqueting and conference facility expansion that brings in the moolah

 

[Tredman]

Yeah, been to loads of conferences at the Ricoh over the years, Chelsea and Utd too. No reason why we couldn't have a bit of that cash.

 

[Pablowolf]

If they can copy the Man City conference grub they'd be onto a winner.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

I'd also question if the corporate areas need expansion. There's been plenty of times when the Steve Bull boxes have looked empty this season.

I think the concept of the box has fallen by the wayside somewhat, the WV1 experience is the way forward for corporate, you are able to pick and choose the games and to be quite frank - the experience is pretty damn good.

In terms of capacity I would be disappointed if we didn't look to increase it by circa 10k for the new SB, it wouldn't cost that much in the overall magnitude of cost and if we do have real ambition it would help future proof it (something I always felt SJH vision fell short on)

The South Bank would be a nicety and could easily add another 5k on

 

[Kenny]

Here is Tim's latest Athletic article.



This is what happens to players after a football match
Tim Spiers 16m ago

It has not even been half an hour since Nuno Espirito Santo oversaw one of the most momentous results in the recent history of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Willy Boly – a defender with the strength of a bison and the graceful touch of a ballet dancer – has scored a last-gasp winner that 1,000 Wolves supporters who’ve made the 4,000-round trip to Istanbul will never forget.

Besiktas, a club steeped in history, European regulars and with a home record against English clubs in the past 10 years that has seen them lose precisely zero matches (having faced Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal and Stoke) have been beaten by a club who were in League One five years ago.

It’s a night, given the traditional intimidating welcome in Istanbul and the ferocious atmosphere inside the stunning Vodafone Park stadium, that belongs in the away day category of ‘ultimate’.

“It’s amazing,” a beaming Conor Coady says as he undergoes post-match interview duties. “The distance this club has come is absolutely huge. It’s what dreams are made of.”

But, back to Nuno, who is in his press conference and has been asked a fairly straightforward question by an intrepid radio reporter with dulcet Black Country tones.

“What were the emotions and the scenes like in the dressing room and what was your message to the players?”

Given the above context, you might expect words like ‘wonderful’ or ‘amazing’ to be uttered in response by the Wolves boss.

Nuno’s reply is swashed back speedier than a full-pelt Adama Traore over 50 yards.

“Recovering,” he says. “They are already recovering because Sunday, we play.

“There was two minutes of celebration only. We are already preparing for the next one – that was the emotion.”

Yes, Sunday, when at 2pm, Wolves will take on one of the best teams on the planet in the form of Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

Physically and mentally, the players have just exerted vatfuls of energy, yet three days later, they’re expected to be able to do it all over again on the other side of Europe.

It’s the job of an extensive backroom team, using the latest technology and methods, to make sure they arrive at the Etihad in peak condition.

And here’s how they do it.

In physical form, preparations for City start minutes after the final whistle.

But in theory, staff told The Athletic, those preparations actually began at the start of pre-season, when routines were instigated and implemented by an expert medical team to hopefully allow the players to recover – and perform – better as a team in 2019-20.

The theory goes that once the relentless slog of what already for Wolves will be a minimum of a 53-game season has started in earnest. It is more difficult to encourage the players to change their habits than at the start of a fresh campaign.

The Wolves squad were educated on the importance of ice baths, massages and travelling later to matches – in this case to Istanbul on Wednesday afternoon, after training at Compton Park in the morning rather than vice versa (so, not training late in Turkey) – to allow a better rest period on the day before a game.

So when things have to be done, like the dreaded ice bath shortly after the game, they’re generally done without complaints from potentially temperamental athletes who may otherwise try and forego mundane recovery duties by using the excuse of being in a bad mood from a poor result, a bad individual performance, an injury, or a call to undertake a potentially lengthy drug test. At Wolves, the idea is to get the players to want to do this, subconsciously or not.

That ice bath is one of three key components of the 45-minute period, on average, in the dressing room before the journey home begins.

First of all, players must drink and eat plenty, to rehydrate and re-energise their bodies. A couple of minutes after full-time, they bound cock-a-hoop into what is a luxurious away dressing room in the Vodafone Park stadium.

It’s a gargantuan room, complete with a sizeable plunge pool, a separate area for the coaches, more showers than Manchester gets in April and a large area where an all-you-can-eat feast is laid out en masse. For context, this area is roughly the same size as the entire home dressing room at Molineux.

Three tables struggle to carry the weight of the substantial buffet, prepared by the team’s chef Sean Kyle, who travels home and away. The contents can vary but on Thursday night’s menu, we have mini burgers, toasted sandwiches, potato wedges, pizza, chicken curry, rice, bruschetta, fruit pancakes and salmon.

Those dishes won’t strike you as being a staple part of a modern footballer’s diet but the immediate post-match feast is primarily about one thing only – loading up on carbs.

In terms of flavours, it’s a diversified buffet to fulfil different needs and tastes. Believe it or not, it’s not always easy to get players to stuff their faces straight after a game, so it must be food the players want to gorge on.

Sean works closely with head of nutrition Mayur Ranchordas to tailor the menu, which can be adapted depending on the country Wolves are in (as fresh ingredients must be sourced) and sometimes also includes sushi or pasta.

Protein shakes are also strewn across the dressing room. Again, to overcome feelings of exhaustion or maybe nausea, the tastes are individualised for each player to help encourage them to immediately get the required fluids on board, especially after a game that’s been played in 25C heat.

The room is a hive of activity – some players are watching replays of Boly’s winner on their phone, others are stretching and easing tension in their tired muscles with foam rollers, while a few more are braving the ice bath, overseen by club doctors including Matt Perry, who will encourage two or three of them to dip in together to make it more of a social activity and less a mild form of torture. One thing you won’t see is selfies from the dressing room. They’re not allowed, as are any pictures from within this private space.

Not all the players are here. Adama Traore and Morgan Gibbs-White, for example, have been selected to undergo a drug test by UEFA officials.

They could be a while. The pair need to produce 100ml of urine but having just run a few miles in stifling heat, that may not be easy – and at this point, there’s a limit on the amount of water they can chug to aid the process.

While he’s waiting for that eureka moment, Traore is allowed out of the drug testing room to speak to the media, although a chaperone must remain with him at all times.

The Spaniard was a half-time substitute and his fellow subs are still out on the Vodafone Park turf, being put through their paces with sprinting drills led by rehabilitation guru Joao Lapa.

They do so in an almost-empty ground, save for the 1,000 Wolves supporters trying to make themselves heard (mostly with a rendition of the Patrick “loves the pizza, loves the pasta” Cutrone song) above the ludicrously loud music (a particularly monotonous strain of deep house) still being blasted out the novelty-sized speakers which line the inner ring of the stadium roof.

Substitutes may do less post-match running depending on how long they played for. Analyst Tom Male will look at the ‘loads’ the players took on, which will specify whether they need to be out running, or perhaps doing core strength work in the dressing room.

It’s back there where we find the majority of the first XI, now showered and groomed, donning not just their club tracksuits ahead of the journey home but also what essentially look like a pair of tights.

These are ‘compression garments’, designed to boost blood flow in the legs and stimulate the body’s lymphatic system, a network of tissues and organs that gets rid of toxins and waste produced by exercise.

The bespoke compression garments are even more important than usual tonight because the players are soon to fly home – and on the plane, blood-flow will be restricted, which can lead to sore and heavy legs.

Indeed, the club has two types of these tights, one for the plane and one for a domestic coach journey, where the air pressure is of a much lower level.

They, like the aforementioned ‘foam rollers’, are key tools in what Wolves call the “perception of wellbeing”, a crucial component of recovering after a match.

A big part of that recovery has to do with the central nervous system and the brain. Rollers and tights don’t provide miracle cures but if the brain perceives that these tools and equipment are what’s needed, then the body enters a state that leads to a quicker recovery.

With their tracksuits on and bags packed, the players gradually head for the coach in dribs and drabs, some stopping to chat to reporters on the way out.

Traore and Gibbs-White have completed their urinary duties, staff have loaded the coach with a wide array of heavy gym equipment, and a 45-minute journey to Istanbul Airport begins at around 11.30pm, an hour and a half after that Boly winner.

Some clubs may have chosen to stay in Istanbul overnight (Liverpool did so after beating Chelsea in the Super Cup in August) but Wolves’ preference is to return home as soon as possible, one of the reasons being to give the players as much time with their families as possible.

Istanbul Airport is one of the biggest in the world but Raul Jimenez isn’t off to duty-free to pick up some last-minute baklava – Wolves, as they’ve hired their customary private jet, are driven to a VIP entrance where they are quickly processed by airport staff and take their seats on the plane, which takes to the sky at 1am.

Time for sleep? Log on to Netflix and start a binge for the four-hour flight? Well, not quite yet. There’s still work on their bodies to be done.

Flying has a negative impact on hydration, so nutrition chief Mahur has prepared drinks designed to combat the loss of sweat and salt, which will ensure they’re getting not only water but minerals to help the body stay at an optimal level.

Chef Sean prepares yet another plate of food for the players, this one being more of a balanced and nutritional meal, not just carbs, while there are more protein supplements to be drunk to help restore energy levels but also replenish muscles.

Again, much of this work started in pre-season when the players underwent stringent strength work, working on the body’s resilience, with the idea being that a better muscle base equals less damage during a game and therefore less recovery time needed.

It’s hoped this will pay dividends during the busiest times of the season, like, for example, the festive period.

Medical staff buzz around the plane going from player to player, ensuring they’re all using muscle stimulation devices, which are placed on the legs to get muscles ‘bumping’ again and negate that heavy feeling in their legs during a long flight.

Players with aches, pains and knocks use what’s known as a ‘Game Ready’ icing machine, which uses NASA space suit technology to circulate cold water from an ice reservoir through a wrap which is applied to the injured area of the body and provides compression as well as ice treatment.

A few try to nod off but at this time, still just a few hours after the final whistle blew in Besiktas, they aren’t expected to sleep yet, with that adrenaline still coursing through their veins.

The plane journey is primarily used for rest – and a window to continue that all-important recovery.

The players are due back in at Compton Park late on Friday morning (for a light session, while the subs and unused players take part in a normal session where the under-23s and under-18s help make up the numbers), meaning that by the time they’ve got home and gone to bed, they will lose a couple of hours of sleep compared to a normal night, but not significant amounts.

Indeed, when it comes to sleep, Wolves’ medical staff believe the worst thing a player can do is unnaturally break his sleep cycle. If they are allowed to have the following morning off and sleep until 2pm the next day, for example, their body clock will alter, their routine will change and the result could be fatigue.

Training is always in the morning. It allows for a consistent schedule for the body to get used to. Wolves also found in the past that if players were given the morning off for extra sleep, for example, many of them would spurn the chance of an extra few recovery hours in bed and instead use the rare opportunity of a morning with the family to take their children to school.

Lost sleep can be caught up on with a power nap on Friday afternoon, which is deemed more than acceptable. Indeed, studies show that after a power nap, the body can run faster and jump higher.

Four hours after setting off, it’s precisely 5.03am Turkey time but touching down at Birmingham International Airport, it’s now 3.03am UK time and the main part of the players’ recovery, six and a half hours after the end of the match, is complete.

Some say their goodbyes here (players local to Birmingham drive themselves home), while the rest head on to Compton on a coach. They’ll all reconvene around nine hours later.

The whole operation is quite something to witness – a well-oiled machine that will be repeated on dozens of occasions over the coming months.

It’s a system built on communication and education. The players feel as if everything is coordinated for them and have a “spirit of sacrifice and commitment” when it comes to their off-field recovery work, one that new signings have little choice to embrace, given the standards set by the senior players in the squad, none more so than captain Conor Coady, who tells The Athletic of the importance of the team behind the team.

“They’re a massive part of this football club and what they do for us on a daily basis, not just after the games,” Coady said.

“We’ve had all kinds of matches this season. The flying comes into play too but we’re recovering on planes and in changing rooms to make sure we’re ready.

“They’re one of the best medical teams there is.”

The team ethic of the backroom team is just as important as that of the players. Medical and sports science staff, the analysis or nutrition staff and coaches enlist a ‘one team’ ethic, which allows for crossovers between their respective specialist fields, so long-serving head of medical Phil Hayward and fitness chief Antonio Dias may share ideas and make suggestions even if it’s not traditionally related to their specialist field.

Nuno’s blessing, but also his knowledge of the rehabilitation side of football, is absolutely key to the whole process.

On days when players are flagging, whether collectively or individually, or moaning about the monotonous recovery or preparatory work, the boss will be informed of any dissent – and promptly hammer home its importance in no uncertain terms.

The head coach is also flexible and understanding when it comes to recovery time sometimes taking precedence over training.

So, for example, if Antonio judges that the players need a second recovery day as an intense football training session may consume too much energy and leave them at a level of 80 per cent heading into the next match, the day will be tailored to allow for lighter sessions.

It’s that communication which has made Wolves’ fitness methods such a success. Staff at the club who’ve been in the fitness industry for decades and worked at some of the biggest clubs in Europe have never seen such a high level of team cooperation and buying into the methodology.

Everyone has freedom to speak their mind and offer opinions. Routines aren’t set in stone.

“The staff have been important, since the beginning of the season, all the travelling we’ve had,” Nuno said ahead of the Besiktas game. “The tight schedule requires a lot of effort from all of us – the players, the medical team, the backroom staff, everyone.

“Travel times, taking care of meals, spending time with the players; all these things are important.

“The staff have been fantastic.”

The team’s results have directly benefited too. Wolves scored 11 goals in the final 10 minutes of league games last season (only four Premier League teams scored more and three of them were Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal).

Two weeks ago, Diogo Jota netted an injury-time equaliser at Crystal Palace despite Wolves being a man down. And in Istanbul, Boly’s winner came in the 93rd minute, at the end of Wolves’ best spell of the match. Yes, the start to the season has been mixed but the club are confident everything they do will mean that was just a blip.

Their fitness is imperious and their injury record speaks for itself. You could count on one hand the amount of injuries Wolves suffered across the entire 2018-19 campaign.

It’s those kind of statistics that create unequivocal trust from the players towards the staff. They can see the benefits and the rewards. They embrace what instructions are given to them. Orders aren’t questioned.

“Our staff are top class,” Matt Doherty tells The Athletic in Istanbul. “They have us well-drilled. We’re all in good shape and we recover properly.

“You can see we’re able to have the energy towards the end to nick a winner.

“This is where we want to be, in these competitions. Fatigue can be more of a mental thing at times.

“Come Sunday, fatigue won’t be an issue.”

Win, lose or draw at the Etihad, there can be no doubt that Doherty’s words will ring true.

 

[SSB]

Not having a go, but are you risking a slapped wrist posting articles from a subscription website?

 

[Kenny]

I think they will be delighted someone is sharing Tim's work TBH...

Guessing at the moment they won't mind as they are getting their articles out there and site promoted. Might change but I am happy to carry on sharing the odd article. Not like I am recreating the whole site and posting every artcle they put up.

 

[Pablowolf]

That was good article, who wrote it for Timmy?