Frank Nouble will have no trouble coping with the long trips to Town’s next two league fixtures — because he will do what comes naturally and sleep virtually all the way.

The team bus will clock up around 950 miles transporting its valuable cargo on return journeys to Middlesbrough and Yeovil and Nouble said: “They are two of our longest trips of the season and we’ve got them back to back in the space of three days. It’s going to be about 18 hours in total on the bus.

“But I fall asleep all the time in any case and then I tend to wake up when we get there. The other lads have taken pictures of me fast asleep and put them on Twitter but I don’t care.

“I don’t need a laptop, an iPad, DVDs or a card school. I’ll get on the bus and within 20 minutes I’m gone and won’t wake up for three, four or five hours.

“You can’t beat a power nap in the afternoon after training. I do it every second day and I reckon it’s why I can do the lung-bursting runs on a match day. I’m not too bothered about a lot of travelling.

“We can’t complain about our location and there are going to be a lot of long trips when you look at where we are in the country. It’s nothing new and we’re well used to it.”

Nouble expects manager Mick McCarthy to make full use of his squad in the weeks ahead as Town look to secure a play-off spot for the first time since the 2004/05 season when Joe Royle led his team to a third place finish.

He added: “We will need the whole squad fit and ready because I am sure the manager will make changes over the next few games.

“I don’t know what the club was like two years ago but obviously last year we were fighting to stay in the league. In the end we did quite well and finished the season very strongly.

“This year we are higher in the league so that shows the progress that has been made. You want that to continue from one season to the next but we are not yet thinking about next season.

"There are still 13 games left to play and you never know in football. Thirteen games, that’s an awful lot of points to be won and lost.”

Photo: Action Images

nutter added 06:35 - Mar 8 all that sleep. you'd think he might wake up for the game
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Dissboyitfc added 08:00 - Mar 8 That is a long time to be spending on a coach.I work in norwich, yesterday the stoke team were being picked up by coach from the airport, for their game at carrow road today. Surely Marcus could afford to send the players by plane ?
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karls_dad added 10:17 - Mar 8 The mans always asleep, especially in front of goal! so that not news at all! Anyone would think that i,m not his biggest fan? as if!
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