SWINDON Town manager David Flitcroft has reported a ‘clean bill of health’ for his players following their pre-season tour to Portugal.

The squad returned home from the Iberian peninsula yesterday and the County Ground chief was delighted with the work that they put in during their five-night stay, with three training sessions a day taking place.

When Town flew out to Portugal last Tuesday, midfielder Conor Thomas was carrying a slight knock to his ankle.

Flitcroft was hoping to have the former Coventry City man back in training by the Wednesday, however, Thomas returned ahead of schedule.

“I think that (picking up no injuries) has been the biggest success of the tour,” Flitcroft told BBC Wiltshire.

“We were hoping that Conor Thomas would be able to take part in training on the Wednesday, but he came back and did a session on Tuesday and Tuesday evening.

“He was a little bit tentative in his first session because of the injury but he has been great.

“I have been doing tours for 10 years as a manager or an assistant manager and touch wood, there have been some niggles, but we have a clean bill of health.”

During their time in Portugal, which included a high-intensity training match against Bristol Rovers played over three 30 minutes sessions that ended in a goalless draw, Flitcroft took one trialist on the trip but would not say who the player was.

Now back in the UK, Town will head north tomorrow for two days where they will play a behind-closed-doors match against Derby County U23s as well as game against an unnamed club at the FA’s St George’s Park facility in Burton-on-Trent.

“It is fantastic that we can go over to Derby and play their U23s,” added Flitcroft. “Then on the Wednesday we go to St George’s Park.

“We have gone from having no games in pre-season three weeks ago to coming towards the end of an exhaustive pre-season programme.

“The work that has gone on behind the scenes has been fantastic and I can’t thank everyone who has helped to put this together enough.

“The chairman (Lee Power) understands what we were trying to do and I’m delighted with everything that we have done.”