Lester: Injury problems are not of our own creation

The manager has been very vocal about the intensity of his training regime at the Proact.

But he believes it’s not overloading his players that has cost Town the services of the likes of Drew Talbot (hamstring), Andy Kellett (knee) and Gozie Ugwu (ankle) of late.

In fact Lester says he hasn’t had the chance to overwork the Spireites in the last few weeks.

“We haven’t overloaded them recently,” he said.

“We’ve struggled to get on the training ground as much as we’d like.

“It’s either been frozen and we’ve been on the 4G or it’s been muddy, to say the least.

“The training regime has probably gone the other way, against my beliefs really.

“We’re trying to do stuff without the football to catch it up, take the ball away and run.

“We haven’t had that training facility for the last month or so, that was there a while ago.”

So what has been to blame for the spate of knocks? Lester has been wracking his brains for an answer.

“A lot of them are coming out of tackles badly, one minute into a training session, I can’t really put my finger on why,” he said.

“We’ve had debriefs and looked at what could it be.

“It’s certainly not overuse.

“When we were really at that top end of fitness work before the injuries came, we weren’t picking things up.

“It’s just a little bit of bad luck, a lot of injuries in the same position.

“Sid clears one up the line and gets a late one, what can you do about that?

“Gozie goes into a tackle, his first game back and comes out not very well, what can you do?

“We can just get on with it.”

Although Lester admits that they had to be a ‘little’ more protective of players when the squad got so thin before the cavalry arrived in the form of January signings, he’ll continue to demand intensity in training.

“Energy is a massive thing, it’s one of my beliefs of successful football teams,” he said.

“My eye is always on getting as much training into them as possible and that won’t change.

“Hopefully with the players coming back we can push on.”

Johnny Wilson is the man tasked with not only getting players fit again after injury, but helping prevent knocks.

The new head physio at the Proact has inked a three month deal with the club.

“He’s here to the end of the season, we’ll see how we both get on,” said Lester.

“He’s been excellent, very bright, he has got a tough regime which the lads are enjoying to a certain extent.

“It’s important.”