Cowley is starting to see benefits of Town’s training
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN manager Danny Cowley says that his players have made some ‘real gains’ in fitness work – with Championship clubs now receiving the green light to return to full contact training.
The EFL are in the process of allowing Championship clubs to progress to contact sessions after they returned to small-scale training at the start of last week.
Leeds United are stepping up their training regime after their full contact risk assessment was accepted by the governing body, while West Brom returned to full training on Tuesday.
Across the division, fullscale training is being gradually phased in this week, with Barnsley set to return to full contact work today.
Terriers chief Cowley said: “We feel like we’ve made some real gains. Now we are looking forward to the next stage to go into some contact training.
“In the last two weeks of lockdown, we were able to do more individual work; introduce balls, changes of direction, more accelerations and decelerations, more football related movement, so they came back in a good place.
“Of course, this part of our training at the minute is quite physically orientated, but at the same time we try and affect the technical and tactical aspects of the game.
“It’s been valuable for us really, when you take over a team midseason, you get the pre-season that somebody else has planned, prepared and delivered.”
Hull City are confident of securing further extensions among the club’s remaining loanees after Josh Bowler signed on the dotted line for the rest of 2019-20.
The Tigers agreed a deal with Everton at the start of the week to enable Bowler to stay put and are hopeful that Blues defender Matthew Pennington and Liverpool midfielder Herbie Kane will follow suit shortly.
As it stands, no extension has yet been agreed between Hull and fellow Championship strugglers Barnsley regarding winger Mallik Wilks staying at the KCOM Stadium for the rest of 2019-20.
But the East Yorkshire club remain hopeful of retaining the former Leeds United wingman.
The Tigers have an option to buy Wilks, but it expires on June 30.
The situation is more complicated regarding Marcus Maddison, who joined the Tigers on a six-month loan deal from Peterborough United at the start of 2020 – but is out of contract at London Road at the end of June.