Why Portsmouth injuries have been piling up - but Joe Gallen hopeful it's under control
Pompey’s spate of injuries have been inevitable, according to Joe Gallen.
But the Blues’ assistant boss is adamant the club are doing all they can to restrict the telling impact of a packed fixture list.
In addition, Andy Cannon injured his groin at Ipswich last weekend.
Classed as muscle injuries, Gallen believes it is down to fatigue – and a consequence of a League One season which started a month late.
And Pompey are hoping to minimalise such problems within their squad.
Gallen told The News: ‘We are trying everything we can to lower the chances of picking up muscle injuries.
‘We monitor everyone's training, monitor how much everyone is doing during the game, we are in the gym constantly doing stretching and strengthening work, while everyone has their individual programmes.
‘We train hard with good intensity, but we don’t overtrain.
‘Unfortunately it’s going to be tough for anyone to come out unscathed with the season starting later and the volume of games.
‘It’s the amount of matches and high intensity of the games you play. For us, it’s also the travelling, sitting on a coach for five hours is not an athletic position and we’ve been to Sunderland, Lincoln and Ipswich recently.
‘We all thought we’d start picking injuries up, but just don’t want too many.’
However, Crewe’s visit to Fratton Park on Saturday, November 21, remains a possibility.
Gallen added: ‘We are trying our utmost to think of everything.
‘We have a cryotherapy chamber at the training ground, basically a huge freezer you go into after training and games.
‘You stay in it for a couple of minutes and it helps your muscles recover.
‘I don’t think we have missed too much.’
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