Tony Pulis hails West Brom medical staff

The Baggies enjoyed one of their best seasons of recent times despite operating with one of the smallest and oldest squads in the Premier League.

One of the undoubted factors in their success, particularly during the first of the campaign, was Pulis being able to call on his best players week-in, week-out as Albion remained relatively injury free.

Figures compiled by injury data analyst Ben Dinnery and released earlier this week revealed the Baggies suffered a total of just 14 significant injuries during the course of the season, the lowest number of any club in the Premier League. As a team, Albion also lost fewer days to injury than their rivals.

On Thursday evening, Baggies director of performance Mark Gillett then tweeted a graph which showed the club's insurance spend for the campaign was significantly lower than all but one of their top flight rivals.

Pulis said: “It’s a tap on the back for the medical side, a tap on the back for the football club in the way we prepare the players and looking after them.

“Add to that, we’ve got the oldest squad in the Premier League, it’s been a good season.

“If you look at what we’ve managed to squeeze out of the squad, it’s been very good. That’s very important for us.”

The Baggies boss is known for his meticulous approach to planning and preparation and the Baggies will almost immediately head off to their traditional training camp in Austria after returning for pre-season, where the focus will be on strength and conditioning work.

Pulis believes such exercises are crucial in laying the foundations for the campaign ahead and can now point to a healthy track record of success as proof.

“If you look after them physically, and mentally, and you prepare the players well enough, unless you’re very unlucky they should get through a season,” he said.

“That’s what we’ve done and that’s what we’ve done at all the other clubs I’ve been at.

“We work very hard in pre-season and work hard during the season to keep muscular injuries down. You can’t help it if someone breaks their leg or does their knee, that happens and you have to accept that, but muscular injuries are avoidable.

“That’s always been my argument to the medical staff at every club I’ve been at.

“That coincides with the way you set your training and recovery out during the week because at the end of it the most important thing is the game.

“I’ve always been pretty conscious that preparation is everything.”

Pulis feels his own methods, established earlier in his career and partcularly at Stoke, have blended well with the practices which were already in place at The Hawthorns prior to his appointment as head coach in January 2015.

“We’ve got something in place we think works. I brought it to West Brom, they’ve bought into it and added to it. It’s been a good marriage in that respect,” he said.

“Matty Phillips is the only one who I’ve been disappointed with in respect of muscular injuries. The rest of the lads have been good, and that’s testament to the medical staff the guys who do the sport science stuff for us. It’s good.”