Derby ready to race into Manchester United FA Cup clash after hiring Team GB sprint coach Jonas Dodoo

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Derby County head into their FA Cup clash with Manchester United at Old Trafford with speed on their side after hiring Team GB sprint coach Jonas Dodoo.

The high-flying Championship club appointed director of Speedworks Training Dodoo as they aimed to pick up the pace in their pursuit of Premier League promotion.

Derby now sit second top behind only Wolverhampton Wanderers and will hope their speedsters can cause an upset at the Theatre of Dreams in the third round.

Derby have appointed Team GB sprint coach Jonas Dodoo to help the squad inject more pace

Dodoo was the man who helped Theo Walcott recover from his ACL injury in 2014 and has worked with Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford. He has also spent the past five years building 4x100m world champion Chijindu Ujah and 100m World Championships finalist Reece Prescod.

‘I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the fastest athletes in rugby 7s, 15s, football and athletics,’ Dodoo told Sportsmail.

‘In the build-up to 2012, I was contracted by the RFU to work with men's and women's teams with a focus on developing and applying "speed skills" within the rugby environment.

‘I’ve had great opportunities to work with some of the best athletes in the country and be exposed to the most professional set-ups.

‘I’ve always been surprised how far behind team sports are from athletics – it’ s not just football. Elite cultures take time to develop as there is a need to blend the old methods with successful processes from other industries. Derby are creating an impressive high performance culture which is nice to be a small part of.’ 

The Rams are set to go up against Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup

An upset and defeat for United would heap further pressure upon manager Jose Mourinho

Explaining how he became involved in football, Dodoo said: ‘When Theo Walcott did his knee, his physio at the time (Declan Lynch) had known me from the work I had done previously in rugby.

‘He knew that Theo’s biggest strength was his speed, so that was something he had to make sure he got back.

‘A lot of professional players whose gifts is speed and they do their ACL, a lot of them struggle to come back to the same speed or close to it.

‘So from his first day of training and for the following eight months I went through the process of going through the ABCs of speed, power, biometrics, stability, body awareness. He came back faster than he was prior. That was a big success story.

'My work with team sports focuses on sharing my experience of high performance cultures and challenging staff and players to adopt effective strategies.' Ends