Blues manager Paul Cook believes Town are reaping the benefits of the work on fitness which has been ongoing at Playford Road since pre-season, citing the impression made by Sone Aluko in the last two games as an example.

Aluko was one of several players recruited over the summer to have had a disrupted pre-season due to not being with a club, injury or in some cases Covid.

The 32-year-old made a slow start to his time at Town but having worked hard with the likes of director of performance Andy Rolls, whose training top manager Cook was inadvertently wearing at his press conference this morning, has made a big impression in the last two matches, scoring twice in the 2-2 draw at Cambridge and once in the 4-0 hammering of Portsmouth.

“I think if you look at Sone Aluko as an example of a lad who has probably taken his time getting up to match fitness,” Cook said.

“We were 10 or 11 games in and we’d only really seen Sone in glimpses in games. If you watched the last two games, he’s absolutely been fantastic for us.

“Lads getting up to fitness, there’s a lot of work from Andy Rolls and the performance guys behind the scenes that goes on.

“We’ve put a squad together very late, we signed players late and we’re now reaping the benefits of the fitness work that they do at Playford Road on a daily basis and everything that goes with that.

“It’s great to see us making positive substitutions in my opinion in a game and hopefully when those positive substitutions go on the pitch they’re supposed to carry the fight the same way, so long may it continue.”

Cook stressed the importance of players being in top condition: “For modern-day footballers now, we all watch the Premier League and we all accept that the Premier League lads are probably the elite level of performance in terms of physicality and output.

“But it doesn’t stop lads on League Two, League One and the Championship training and working as hard to be as fit as they can be.

“For any team nowadays, if you dip out through fitness, it’s not good. For us as a club, we just try our best to do the same things daily so that our habits get us home. If you’ve got good habits, the reality is that good things will happen.”

Photos: TWTD

Passit2Gio added 11:49 - Oct 22 Haha Cook's into fitness so much he's stolen Andy Rolls training top!
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JewellintheTown added 16:03 - Oct 22 You should see the amount of towels and bath robes Cooks got from away match hotels! Takes an extra suitcase now.
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bobble added 21:46 - Oct 22 scousers ...
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