Portsmouth chief addresses medical team's 'pleasing' performance amid wretched injury record

Pompey’s medical department has been absolved of criticism over the season’s horrific injury list.

And chief executive Andy Cullen has praised the ‘care and dedication’ of the new-look team which stepped in after their predecessors’ much-publicised summer departures.

Bobby Bacic (head physio), Jeff Lewis (head of sports science) and Jack Hughes (first-team physio) left at the end of last season following friction with ex-head coach Danny Cowley.

As a consequence, Max Whittingham stepped up from the Academy to serve as strength and conditioning coach, while Tom Nation and Paul Cremin took on the physio roles temporarily.

In August, Steve Hard, who spent 15 years at Bournemouth, was appointed as the Blues’ head of medical, to be joined by George Bell and Matt Best.

And irrespective of the wretched injury misfortune which continues to impact on Pompey’s promotion push, Cullen has high praise for the newcomers.

He told The News: We are really pleased with our medical and sports science department, which includes Steve Hard, Max Whittingham, George Bell and Matt Best.

‘With the injuries we’ve had, when you start to analyse them, so many are impact injuries, which is really unusual.

‘They have been really long-term injuries, not a month here or there, or five-or-so weeks out. Instead it has been three months, six months, season-ending. We’ve been really hit by that.

‘We are pleased with the strength and conditioning and pleased with the way the players are coping with their rehab. It’s possible we’ll have a few back before the end of the season, which is testament to the care and dedication we have with the medical team.

‘I don’t want to talk about what went on before (with the medical team), we just talk about where we are now, we all look forward.

‘We had a situation with the medical team in the summer where we had to go out and recruit. We went about it with the same degree of thoroughness as we did when looking at the sporting director role and then the head coach role.

‘There was a process to everything and we followed that through methodically with the recruitment and medical team this summer.

‘It’s never good to lose all your medical team at one particular point, but it’s a chance to refresh and go again. There is a huge degree of confidence in the medical staff, most importantly from the players.’

Hard spent five years as Millwall’s assistant physio, before joining Bournemouth in June 2006.

During his time at Dean Court, the Cherries rose through the Football League to spend five years in the Premier League.

After leaving in June 2021, he worked as Crawley first-team physio during 2021-22, and also ran his own Poole-based practice.

Cullen added: ‘We were really lucky to get Steve because of his background and pedigree. We also had to persuade him to come out of practice and into a first-team football environment.

‘When he met John (Mousinho) and Rich (Hughes) he could see what we were trying to achieve, which was massive to him and very helpful in making the decision to come back into the madness of the professional football world.’