PAUL Mitchell believes injury prevention can play a major role in helping Newcastle kick on this season and has outlined the importance of summer arrival James Bunce.

Bunce, who previously worked with Newcastle's sporting director at Southampton and Monaco, joined as performance director in the summer, with Eddie Howe "super receptive" to his arrival and work, says Mitchell.

Bunce specialises in injury prevention and risk reduction, something that was identified as a priority in the summer when club bosses sat down to reflect on last season when Newcastle's squad was decimated after a string of setbacks.

Mitchell said: "This is a smart organisation, and I think when you do the analysis it's not hard to find and say that injury really had a contributing factor to our performances, it does with everyone's.

"So I think, looking at that, coming out and understanding objectively that we did have that severity of injuries and not wanting to have that again, was there a clear defined role we needed to implement within a modern structure if we want to keep moving forward in a modern way? 100%.

"Eddie did a really good job, but a lack of squad availability definitely impacts every coach. If you don't have your best players, you're not going to be at your optimum. So there was an area there that I think everyone from Eddie to the ownership to Darren (Eales) agreed we need to get better in this context, because when we arrive in a three game schedule week again, we need to make sure our players are resilient athletes that can perform every couple of days.

“I think there was definitely an aligned view that this is crucial to make sure we learn lessons from the past, to make sure we don't have that again. And I think that really excites us this year.

“If we can keep the players fit, keep the players focused, keep the players resilient, we have got a really good team. We won't need to rotate as much as others because we're not in that really difficult [fixture] cycle to manage."

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On Bunce's day to day role, Mitchell said: "James is on the grass every single day with Eddie. Not in a participation but from a perspective of support and they have regular dialogue pre and post training, so from my perspective, adding a real high level member of the team in, Eddie has been super receptive.

"I would like to believe that someone as smart and intelligent as Eddie Howe would recognise quality wherever it came from and I think that James is a good example of that and we need to keep building that within our infrastructure, and that goes for scouting as well.

"I think that good players are getting harder to find because scouting recruitments get so competitive but I think Eddie recognises good players and this club is evolving to be bigger and bigger and bigger.

"If you look at, lets say the super clubs and their recruitment and infrastructure, they don’t just look at one market only. They are more diverse, have a wider-range scouting network so I think Eddie is smart enough to understand that to go to the next level then you do have to diversify and outstretch your network otherwise you just stay local in your entirety and our ambition is much bigger than that."