Meeting Steve McClaren's Newcastle Backroom Staff - Everything You Need To Know

5. Alessandro Schoenmaker - Fitness Coach

Nicknamed "Mr Muscle", Alessandro Schoenmaker arrives at Newcastle's Benton training base looking to improve the general wellbeing of the players as Steve McClaren's fitness - or "strength and conditioning" - coach. Trusted by McClaren to carry out "individual programmes" for the conditioning of different players, Schoenmaker is a sports-science pioneer who will scrutinise every detail of how Newcastle train, prepare for matches and, perhaps most importantly, how they deal with injuries. Having followed McClaren from FC Twente, Wolfsburg, Nottingham Forest, back to Holland and then to Derby, Schoenmaker knows his head coach well - and it will have been made clear to him exactly what his job specification is. Schoenmaker must sort out the soft-muscle injury situation at Newcastle - there were no less than 30 last season, with Rolando Aarons, Paul Dummett and Daryl Janmaat alone suffering five each - and he must physically prepare the Magpies squad for a season that begins slightly earlier than normal. What's more, if Newcastle really are going to target the domestic cups - as Mike Ashley claims they are - then the first teamers will be playing a lot more games this season, another reason why their conditioning will be paramount. Newcastle will only start being able to look up the table once they can select from a fully-fit squad, so Schoenmaker must make that his utmost priority.