WANDERERS manager Dougie Freedman says his players will be prepared for play-off battle after the final international break of the season.
It has been nine days since a 1-0 defeat at Ipswich ended the Whites’ eight-match unbeaten run in the Championship.
But after a week of intensive gym training, geared towards building up strength for the remaining eight games, Freedman is confident the team can regroup and continue the form that has seen them string five wins together before their last outing at Portman Road. The Scot said: “We’ve done a lot of tactical video work in the last six weeks because we’ve needed to keep the lads fresh, and I think that has worked for us.
“These two weeks we have been working on a lot of strength work in the gym to make sure they are right for that last little push.
“We’ve got a couple of boys away but the rest of them I really think we can push. We can win five or six games again easy.
“That has got to be the level of performance.”
After the two previous fortnightly international breaks this season, Wanderers have bounced back into league action with home victories against Watford (2-1) in September and Bristol City (3-2) a month later.
Freedman will gearing up his troops to make is a hat-trick of wins against Charlton at The Valley on Saturday.
They will welcome back international trio Adam Bogdan (Hungary), Sam Ricketts (Wales) and Chung-Yong Lee (Korea) ahead of that trip to the capital.
But the distances travelled by Chung-Young to Asia for a behind-closed-doors friendly against Syria – which was postponed – followed by a home World Cup qualifier against Qatar tomorrow mean he will be a late arrival back at Euxton.
Freedman added: “Chungy is probably the only one who won’t be there on the Wednesday; Everyone else will be.
“I think the way players travel these days with their fancy beds and things like that, we’ll be okay.
“But I have to look at the way Chungy played and what his intensity level has been in training.
“It’s a difficult one, of course it is, to manage it at this late stage of the season but I just feel that I have got a big enough squad for one or two to stand up and be counted.”
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