Bull ready to put injury woes behind him

Jul 27 2012 By Greg Burns

Nikki Bull

NIKKI Bull hopes a summer of hard work means he is finally over the shoulder injury that stopped him training last season.

The 30-year-old suffered a recurrence of an old shoulder injury before Christmas that he admits forced him to sit out training despite playing all of Wycombe's 51 games.

And the influential goalkeeper has battled hard during the summer to get match-fit for another League Two promotion charge next month.

“I didn't have a break,” he said. “I went away for eight weeks, kept working hard and lost a couple of stone so I came back fitter than I ever have been and raring to go.

“From November onwards I couldn't really train because my shoulder flared up again and I was having to take injections before games.

“The situation wasn't ideal because it was a case of putting my gloves on on a Friday morning, doing a half-hour of work and then playing in a game.

“I decided I needed to go away this summer and work as hard as I could and I can fully feel the benefits of that now and feel I can take that into the season.”

Bull picked the ball out of his net more than 100 times in all competitions this season and pulled no punches on the final day of the campaign by blasting the season a 'disgrace'.

He has been encouraged by their defensive displays in pre-season – with goalless draws at Luton and Forest Green – but said they need to work on going forward.

“We have tried to work on being more organised and harder to break down.,” said Bull. “The Luton and Forest Green games prove that is working to a certain extent but it also shows how far away we are with the other side of our game. We haven't really posed a threat.

“We have been in League Two before and know what it will be like with teams coming and putting men behind the ball and we have to find that spark to break teams down.”

As for the hurt of last season, Bull is ready to erase some of the unhappy memories of a tortuous League One campaign.

He said: “We won't get over it until we right a few wrongs this season. I don't like thinking about last season because it was horrible but that is in the past now.”

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