United manager Russ Wilcox has once again stressed the importance of offering his players appropriate recovery-time ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Wycombe Wanderers at Glanford Park.
Following Tuesday night’s 2-0 win over Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road, United are currently seven points clear of fourth-placed Fleetwood Town with seven games of the regular season now remaining as they look to complete a return to League One at the first time of asking.That victory came after similar successes against Plymouth Argyle and Burton Albion, with the weekend visit of the Chairboys set to bring an end to a mini-run of hectic fixtures.
Such a sequence of games as the season draws to a close has seen United’s training regime take on a slightly different form in recent weeks, and Wilcox told The Iron Player: “It’s been a mixed day today [Thursday].
“The players who haven’t played have done some work, but I’ve shut the other lads down so they’ve had a two-day recovery. We didn’t get back from Cheltenham until about three in the morning as we had a bad journey back, so it’s important the players are fresh for Saturday.”
One advantage the Iron do have at the weekend is a return to home comforts, while their visitors are hitting the road for the second time in four days.
Being able to return to the familiarity of North Lincolnshire is a welcome boost at this stage of the campaign, and Wilcox added: “Saturday’s game makes it three in a week, but we’re at home again while Wycombe will have had two away games.
“They travelled to Burton on Tuesday, then have to come here which is quite a long journey so hopefully we can play on that. We’ve got to make sure our players are nice and fresh to play at the intensity we have
the last few weeks.
“It’s difficult, but we’ve shown before we can do it as long as we prepare properly.”
See much more from Russ Wilcox, Gary McSheffrey and Niall Canavan on The Iron Player.