Wow. Count the cliches from Shacks.

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?It was a case of in and out last season. It was my first major injury and it was frustrating being out for a good few months, but it's part and parcel of the game. These things are going to come round sometimes. You just have to deal with it and move on. Hopefully, it's done and dusted and behind me now.?

Surgery did not delay Shackell's summer training schedule unduly, as he explained: ?It was a fairly simple operation. They went inside and had a look around. I was fine, walking about literally the next day and I just took it easy for a couple of weeks and then slowly built up, ready to come back.

?I did the same programme as the rest of the boys, starting a couple of weeks after the operation, which was just running and weights and building my strength up in the ankle.?

He said: ?That's always the aim. You can't take anything for granted. I just have to get my head down and work on my fitness, make sure I'm fit and working hard over pre-season and hopefully, when the season comes, I get picked. That's the aim - to be in the team for the first game. But there's a lot of hard work to come before that.

?Our aim is to get promoted. We know we've got a lot of good players here but this is a really tough league now. There are some really good teams - the three that came down last season, Birmingham, West Brom and Sunderland, and the teams that just missed out on promotion, Leeds, Preston and Palace, are not the only ones.

?It's going to be a tough, long, hard season. We've got Leeds and Preston first but we're looking forward to it. We've just got to knuckle down and make sure we're ready for the start of it at three o'clock against Leeds.?

Almost every single sentence straight out of the official Worthy phrasebook. The boy's a natural.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Jun 29, 13:29:33