Latics boss looks for injuries cause

Darren Kelly: wants to root out the cause of Latics’ massive injury tally

ATHLETIC boss Darren Kelly is determined to solve the injuries issue that ruined the club’s season — and may rule that plastic isn’t so fantastic after all.

After defeating Swindon 2-1 in February, Athletic were fifth place in the league. But the season unravelled after that, leaving the club as the only one of that top six group at that stage not to make the play-offs.

Lee Johnson left for Barnsley and only three wins followed in the next 17 games, as a mass of soft-tissue injuries ruined any chance of selection continuity.

Football League figures show Athletic lost 38 players across the campaign - the sixth-highest total in league one. Seven of those made their debut after the Swindon victory, plugging gaps as the injuries piled up.

Kelly knows his small squad can’t afford for a repeat next season if Athletic is to have any chance of making the top six. And he hinted that he may ban training sessions on artificial surfaces, which can be harder on joints and muscles.

“I want to get to the root of everything,” Kelly said. “I have spoken to the physios and I don’t want this to happen. I can’t have eight, nine or 10 players out at once. It can’t be coincidence and there is a problem there.

“I want to know what the training pitches have been like, as I know that it is a mix between grass and 3G, which can bring on all types of problems. It’s managing that and making sure it doesn’t happen next season.”

Kelly will return to his desk next week and one of the positions he will aim to tie down is a new goalkeeper. It seems likely Joel Coleman’s form towards the end of the season will see him start as the club’s number one. With Jake Kean heading back to Blackburn after his unsuccessful loan spell, the squad needs a back-up.

Two men believed to be in the running are Michael Ingham and Rhys Taylor. Ingham (34) is out of contract at York and an experienced former teammate of Kelly’s at Bootham Crescent. Taylor is 25, a former trainee at Chelsea, currently at Macclesfield.