Backroom Boys is the feature on Wolves' official website which looks at life behind the scenes at Molineux. In the latest edition, as Wolves pepare for a hectic schedule of fixtures, fitness coach Tony Daley explains the importance of players' recoveries to ensure they are able to cope.

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Saturday's fixture against Crystal Palace was the first of a scheduled five taking place in a two-and-a-half week period, making the need for proper recovery crucial to the players' ongoing fitness levels.

As much as the football and fitness training is honed during the week towards ensuring players are at their optimum performance levels for a weekend fixture, so too the recovery process starts immediately once the final whistle blows.

I have mentioned in previous programme articles how important it is for the players to take on the adequate foods and recovery drinks within half an hour to an hour of any game finishing.

And we also carry out a cool down session around the pitch to help circulate a chemical called lactate around the body which also helps boost recovery.

Then, when we have a midweek match to follow, as we do with Liverpool tomorrow, the squad return to the Compton training ground on a Sunday to further aid that recovery process.

The session is all very structured, usually starting with a massage at some point between 9.30am and 10.30am.

This can be a very busy period, but we have three masseurs on hand, our full-time and part-time masseurs Mark James and Matt Wignall, and another part-time masseur we bring in, Craig Mazur.

After this the squad will be split into two groups, half doing some work on the bikes and the other half doing some specific stretches with myself, John Iga or Kevin Enright.

These sessions will last about 20 minutes each before swopping over.

Then it's time for the Hydropool, with the players doing exercises to make the muscles supple and loose and to get all the rubbish out of their legs from the day before.

This is then swopped over with the contrast hot and cold baths that we have in the dressing room at Compton, making the session a total of approximately one hour and 20 minutes.

Players who did not have a massage before stretching and bikes may have one now. Finally before the players leave, they have a meal in the canteen and take away all the necessary supplements essential for them to complete their recovery.

The members of the squad who haven't played the day before or have maybe only played a few minutes would still do some football work on the Sunday to look ahead to the midweek game.

It is so important to recover properly just as it is to prepare properly, and while players can often be tired after a game just sitting at home the next day and doing nothing is the worst possible thing you can do.

As I have said it's important to get that lactate circulating around the muscles and if you don't use them you often find yourself picking up all sorts of aches and pains.

The players recognise the importance of the recovery process and how it is of major benefit to them.

There may be a fatigue factor after a game, but even those who come in still feeling a little bit sore on a Monday morning know it could have been far worse had they not done the cool down on the Sunday.

And they realise it's not something we do just for the sake of it.

If we have an international break then they know they won't be coming in on the Sunday purely because the recovery process doesn't need to be as quick or intense.

But if there is a midweek fixture, just like we've got coming up over the next two weeks, it's all about making sure that within 48 hours they are back, battle-hardened and ready to go.

Each player is looked at on their own merits as well, and it may be that someone like Karl Henry, who has played a lot of minutes this season, is sometimes given a lighter training session on the Monday.

If a player is genuinely fatigued, and needs a rest, it's something that the gaffer takes into account and doesn't mean that they put themselves out of contention for selection.

The gaffer would rather them be honest and then maybe come back strongly the next day rather than run the risk of suffering a problem because they have trained when not fully recovered.

The example I always use is that of a car.

When you make a long journey the car it loses petrol, if it's not refuelled for the journey back it will eventually stop running.

That's the same for the players, and it's up to us to ensure we keep them topped up all the time through their preparation and recovery.