THERE hasn’t been very much to laugh about at Wanderers since the start of the season but Phil Parkinson hopes the international break has at least helped him escape his own personal Groundhog Day.

In the seminal nineties comedy, Bill Murray was forced to live the same day over and over again – a feeling the Whites boss started empathise with by the end of his last run of fixtures.

An arduous run of Saturday-Tuesday double headers up and down the land left Parkinson reflecting on similarly frustrating results, and answering questions from increasingly unsatisfied members of the media.

Buoyed by strong message of support from his chairman, Ken Anderson, the Wanderers boss resumes Championship formalities against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday optimistic results are finally about to take a turn for the better.

“I can’t hide from the fact it was a tough run before the break, with so many games, looking at results and thinking ‘I don’t think we could have done any more, so what can I say?’” he told The Bolton News.

“It is hard for the players putting in all that effort and getting nothing back from it. The whole thing is draining, physically and mentally, but you have to get yourself back up quickly because we were Saturday-Tuesday for a few weeks. There isn’t much time to look back at the next game or work on certain things.

“I think the international break came at the right time for everyone. It was getting like Groundhog Day. You can take a step away from things, take a breath.”

Fans could be forgiven for thinking they have heard this before too; Wanderers’ disappointing campaign has been peppered with false dawns, including the Carabao Cup win over Wednesday back in August.

The Whites resume play seven points from safety and without a goal since Jem Karacan’s header put them three-up against the Owls at the Macron in a game which ended 3-2, setting up a third round game at West Ham United.

Parkinson feels both he and his staff have tried everything possible over the last couple of weeks to ensure that this time the players will be finally able to launch their season.

“We have worked with players individually, we have worked on all the areas we felt needed improvement – there really hasn’t been a stone left unturned,” he said.

“I can promise the fans that we really couldn’t have worked any harder.

“I know after a run of bad results some people will say ‘have the players in every day for extra sessions and work them harder’ but it doesn’t really work like that – and we’d be risking more injuries if we did it. There were some lads who needed more rest to recover from little knocks.

“We have had to strike a balance with every one of them, give some rest, work others harder, and players like Sammy Ameobi needed those extra minutes on the training ground. But I have been very pleased with what I have seen since the group came back in at the start of the week. We’re all ready to go again now.”

One player Parkinson has been especially keen to work on his Karl Henry – the former Wolves and QPR midfielder who was plunged into action before the international break at Bristol City with little time to ingratiate himself to his new surroundings.

“We just had to put him right in there because we felt he was the right kind of character and, to be fair to Karl, he was excellent,” he said. “Physically he is in good condition and he handled himself very well considering the situation we were in. Being able to work with him more on the training pitch has been really good because we didn’t have the time before the break, it was just a case of getting rest into the players and fine-tuning for the next game.”

Wanderers played an intra-squad friendly on Tuesday to run the rule over some of the players, like Josh Vela, who are on their way back from injury and Parkinson says he saw a noticeable difference in the tempo of play.

“The lads are looking refreshed and I think some of them needed to recharge their batteries a bit,” he said. “I can’t fault the effort they have put in for me so far – we just need to maintain it and results will come, I am confident of that.”