Published: Thursday, 20th November, 2008 13:00
Fearn enjoying the quiet life
By Charles Watts
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Jon Fearn treats Jimmy Kebe for a knock. The Reading physio has not had much to do this so far this season.
READING physio Jon Fearn has joked that his quiet treatment room has made him the envy of all of his peers.
With Graeme Murty’s return to training this week, Fearn has just Dave Mooney, Simon Church and Sam Sodje left on the sidelines.
That is in marked contrast to a number of clubs around the country and Fearn believes it is a big reason for Reading’s current run of form.
He said: “The last few months have been really good in terms of injuries and long may it continue. It makes the manager’s job a lot harder and it makes everybody better when we’ve got a full squad to choose from.
“I talk to my colleagues at other clubs and they’re saying 'Oh my God, I’m so busy’, whereas here Luke (Anthony) and I are relatively quiet which means we can spend quality time with some of those who have more long-term, serious problems.
“It’s great to have a full squad of players to choose from and what it also does, especially when the team is doing well as it is at the moment, is put the guys under pressure to keep playing well.
“If not, the others are chomping at their heels which is the way it should be. There’s a really good atmosphere at the moment. People are trying to get in the side and they want to stay there.
“Sometimes that in itself gets rid of a lot of niggly injuries which go through a squad when things aren’t going so well.”
Fearn believes the lack of injuries around the club could be put down to some changes he has introduced over the last 12 months.
He added: “We’ve put in some subtle changes this year in terms of preventing certain injuries, making people look after themselves better and most importantly we’re looking after old injuries and making sure they don’t come back.
“That seems to have put us in good stead for the minimal amount of injuries we’ve sustained so far.”
One man who has been causing Fearn some concern over the last few months is club captain Murty who has yet to play a first-team game this season.
The right-back picked up a knock during a summer fitness session and has endured a frustrating time ever since.
But he finally returned to training at the weekend and Fearn has praised the 34-year-old for how hard he’s worked to get himself back in shape.
He said: “His prognosis now is good, it’s fantastic. He’s been back training now since the weekend. It was a very slow injury to respond to treatment and everything else, but he’s now back to nearly his old best.
“I was surprised (how long it took), I think we all were. I was in with Glenn Little and Nicky Shorey during the off-season in June and Graeme came in and did a run with us.
“He was sort of hinting that there were subtle signs of problems then. Maybe we can look back and learn from things and make sure that his off-season programme is more religious and he works on things a bit harder.
“When you’re younger and have your holiday you maintain your fitness a lot easier but when you get older it’s harder and maybe some of the older players need to maintain their fitness a little bit more.”
Fearn added: “The last few weeks his fitness has improved immensely. He works so hard, if everybody worked as hard as he does when he comes to training we’d have the fittest club in the world.
“He’s still got areas he needs to work on because he’s missed pre-season and that’s a massive loss to any player because you miss a lot of conditioning.
“But now he’s progressing very well and you can’t knock his testament when it comes to working hard. When you give him work to do, be it in the gym or following me on a run, he always works so, so hard.
“That hard work has paid off, he’s back in training and now’s he’s got to fight to get his position back so good luck to him.”
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