WANDERERS’ mentality, or at least its fragility, has been the subject of numerous conversations in the last few years.

Whether it be a perceived lack of leaders in the dressing room, the inability to cope under pressure or the effect of distractions from external factors at the club, such as last year’s financial problems, many believe psychology to be at the root of the Whites' failures.

Three successive managers – Owen Coyle, Dougie Freedman and Neil Lennon – have failed to change a losing mindset over sufficient time. Now the responsibility falls on Phil Parkinson’s shoulders to restore a winning attitude among the players and, by extension, the fans. Thankfully, he has brought help.

Nick Allamby, now leading the club’s sports science department, was seen as an unsung hero of Parkinson’s successful era at Bradford City.

The majority of Allamby’s professional career had been spent at Middlesbrough where he initially joined as a masseur in 2000. But in 2011 he made the move to Valley Parade as a fitness consultant for Peter Jackson, gaining a full-time post under his successor Parkinson a few months later.

His influence in Wanderers’ pre-season training camp in Sweden could be seen in each meticulously-planned detail.

But while nutrition and physical data can be measured and interpreted at this time of year, getting inside the mindset of a squad so recently relegated from the Championship is something Allamby and the staff have been keen to accomplish.

“For us, pre-season is about getting to know the make-up of players, and as soon as we knew we were coming I did some research which pertained to my position," he told the Bolton News.

“In the grand scheme of things it’s very little, data from matches or training, stuff you can view, but until you get in and work with them there is a lot you don’t know.

“Over the next few weeks that’s what we are looking to achieve.

“Some tests have been done to get an idea of their physical capabilities and we’ve also done some sessions which gives an idea of their psychological make-up. We have tested them in certain situations and watched how they responded.”

Back when Wanderers were at the front of the field for sports science under Sam Allardyce, great emphasis was placed on personality tests to gauge the mental characteristics of players in the dressing room.

Those deemed as leaders at the time – Kevin Nolan, Dean Holdsworth, Gudni Bergsson – proved just that on the pitch.

The current squad has taken a lot of criticism, not least from their own managers, for their inability to hold on to points late in games, to absorb pressure, to come back from a losing position.

Allamby and the staff deliberately instilled a sense of routine into the Swedish training camp to look more carefully at how players coped. From working with the players at such closer quarters they could better assess which personalities are going to fit into Parkinson’s plan, and which ones may struggle.

“Measuring personality is very difficult to do, it’s more qualitative,” Allamby said.

“What we can use is experience – and the manager, assistant manager and myself have got quite a lot of that side of things.

“It’s looking at them in day-to-day training situations, when we put a certain amount of pressure on them in certain situations and see how they react.

“It hasn’t just been that – we are very big on discipline, punctuality, we have a dress rule, those types of things because it shows you a lot about people. Can they be there on time for breakfast, are they tidy, are they presented properly?

“That’s why these weeks in pre-season are really important. This is where we lay the groundwork.”

Gathering information is the easy part – making it work for you is something quite different. Passing it on to players without blinding them with science can be trickier still.

“A lot of that is discussed between the staff and only the relevant stuff will be passed on to the players to improve them,” Allamby said.

“The manager is big on verbal meetings, so I report the necessary data.

“Kristian Aldred, who is already at the club, gathers and quantifies all the physical data and reports it to us as a group.

“We have various ways of doing that – GPS being a main one on the training pitch – but there are various manner of tests that the players have been put through so we know where they are physically.

“Putting that all together over the coming weeks should give us a better picture of the players we have inherited, and I have to say they have been great so far, they have responded very well.”