Huge spike in premier league injuries due to fixture congestion

[Collymore]

5 hours ago, UniFox21 said:

26 of them are knocks or physical injuries which is just incredibly bad luck. Either bad luck or poor preparation for Newcastle to have so many hamstring injuries in one game isn't a coincidence. 

I'm pretty sure these terrible stats has followed Bruce with him from club to club. Sunderland for instance couldn't believe the amount of injuries they sustained IIRC.

 

Edit quick Google and found this from 2011! He reads the list of 11 players at about 1 min!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/13308347

Edited 3 January 2020 by Collymore

[Guest bss9401]

6 hours ago, NaijaFox said:

Compared to 15 years ago, they also play on better pitches, benefit from better sports science and medicine, better nutrition and fitness regime, and paid a whole of a lot more money - and increasingly the game has less contact and you couldn’t get away with the tackles that were virtually routine 15 years ago.

Good points. Would you rather play three games in a week in 2020 or two facing Ali Mauchlin, Mike Whitlow and Steve Walsh (to name but three) on a rock hard, uneven pitch? All long before multiple cameras in stadia and while a tackle from behind and a 'professional' foul were still legal. 

Edited 3 January 2020 by bss9401

[UniFox21]

43 minutes ago, Collymore said:

I'm pretty sure these terrible stats has followed Bruce with him from club to club. Sunderland for instance couldn't believe the amount of injuries they sustained IIRC.

 

Edit quick Google and found this from 2011! He reads the list of 11 players at about 1 min!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/13308347

Bloody hell, at that point surely he can't continue to solely blame the schedule? Comparing to every other team as well, they have one of the highest number of muscular injuries. Afraid I'm losing sympathy for him even more

[dynamark]

Glad Vardys not injuured

[Winchesterfox]

19 hours ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

Love the busy Christmas period myself, if players get muscle injuries then that's a shame but I can't say I'll lose much sleep over it.

An extra game over Christmas is fine, but why also schedule league midweek matches in early December and mid January when the fixture list is at its most congested and the weather is at its worst?   It makes no sense to me.  

[Trav Le Bleu]

22 hours ago, Goober said:

They don't all have the luxury of sitting 2nd in the table like we do. Nor do they have the luxury of having a squad as strong as ours. Much harder to make wholesale changes and potentially chuck away points when you're down at the bottom.

They all have exactly the same size squads. There's 25 players there for a reason and if your 25th player is poor, play him, take a possible hit, butdon't run your best players into the ground for short term damage reduction. Who knows, he might even step up to the game! Play the long game, weigh your resources against the potential lose or gain in the LONG term.

 

It's called management. If other clubs aren't so good at it, maybe they should take a look at the people they have in charge, instead of moaning about it. Everyone is in the same boat, we all have 25 players. If you haven't got faith in players 15-25, then you might as well give up now.

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

49 minutes ago, Winchesterfox said:

An extra game over Christmas is fine, but why also schedule league midweek matches in early December and mid January when the fixture list is at its most congested and the weather is at its worst?   It makes no sense to me.  

Because most people are off work and it's a good distraction from the in laws.

[Sly]

Has anyone looked at the claims Bruce is making about his four injuries:

 

Javier Manquillo

01/01/20 - 45 minutes vs Leicester

26/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Man U

21/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Palace

14/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Burnley

Jonjo Shelvey

01/01/20 - 45 minutes vs Leicester
28/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Everton
21/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Palace
08/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Southampton

 

Jetro Williams

01/01/20 - 45 minutes vs Leicester

28/12/19 - 85 minutes vs Everton

26/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Man U

14/12/19 - 71 minutes vs Burnley

 

Fabian Schar

01/01/20 - 51 minutes vs Leicester

28/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Everton

26/12/19 - 88 minutes vs Man U

21/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Palace

14/12/19 - 90 minutes vs Burnley

 

Do they really have that heavy a schedule? 
 

They all have personal physios, ice baths, cool down routines etc. Couple this with the ones provided by the club, and it’s not really that difficult is it!! 
 

Some of it will be lifestyle and setup. Anyone know where Newcastle stayed before the Leicester game? Were they local, surely they didn’t bus it down same day / night before? A good Manager would have had them local and preparing muscles etc on the morning of the game. Hopefully, they weren’t couped up on a coach! 
 

Lighter training also. They’re professionals, it’s body management. They need to take some responsibility. 

 

Edited 3 January 2020 by Sly

[MPH]

11 hours ago, twoleftfeet said:

Team	No. of injuries in festive programme	Players and injuries
Bournemouth	5	Joshua King (hamstring), Jack Stacey (hamstring), Jefferson Lerma (hamstring), Ryan Fraser (knock), Simon Francis (knee)
Arsenal	3	Calum Chambers (ACL), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (concussion), Gabriel Martinelli (hamstring)
Aston Villa	3	Wesley Moraes (knee), Tom Heaton (knee), Matt Targett (hamstring)
Brighton and Hove Albion	1	Dan Burn (clavicle fracture)
Burnley	0	N/A
Chelsea	4	Fikayo Tomori (undisclosed), Christian Pulisic (hamstring), Reece James (ankle), Cesar Azpilicueta (hamstring)
Crystal Palace	3	Martin Kelly (knock), Patrick van Aarnholt (hamstring), Christian Benteke (muscular injury)
Everton	2	Bernard (knee), Alex Iwobi (hamstring)
Leicester City	2	Ricardo Pereira (hamstring), Harvey Barnes (ankle)
Liverpool	3	Xherdan Shaqiri (hamstring), Jordan Henderson (shin), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (ankle)
Manchester City	1	Nicolas Otamendi (undisclosed)
Manchester United	2	Scott McTominay (MCL), Paul Pogba (ankle)
Newcastle United	8	Javi Manquillo (hamstring & calf), Jetro Willems (groin), Jonjo Shelvey (hamstring), Fabian Schar (hamstring x2), DeAndre Yedlin (hand), Paul Dummett (groin)
Norwich City	4	Teemu Pukki (hamstring), Ralf Fahrmann (muscular injury), Kenny McLean (foot), Max Aarons (Achilles)
Sheffield United	1	John Lundstram (ankle)
Southampton	4	Sofiane Boufal (toe), Stuart Armstrong (knock), Shane Long (knee), Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (knee)
Tottenham Hotspur	3	Tanguy Ndombele (hip), Harry Kane (hamstring), Danny Rose (muscular injury)
Watford	2	Will Hughes (hip), Craig Cathcart (knock)
West Ham United	2	Michail Antonio (hamstring), Andriy Yarmolenko (hamstring)
Wolverhampton Wanderers	0	N/A
	53

 

 

the problem i have with lists being compiled like this is that Both the villa knee injuries were due to collisions- they were nothing to do with fixture congestion.

 

 

the others? i havnt even bothered to look up..

[Grebfromgrebland]

Managers should utilise their squads and youth players rather than play the same team 3 times in 5 days like Newcastle.

 

Managers have no right to moan really.

 

Leicester prepared for December weeks ago. 

 

Play some youngsters and plan ahead.

[LinekersLugs]

3 and 4 d pitches and training surfaces it’s not that hard to work out , since we changed the turf structure injuries in winter have rocketed 

[st albans fox]

benko will be another Xmas/new year injury stat .... need to be careful with stats ..........

[Guest BlueBrett]

On 03/01/2020 at 14:23, MC Prussian said:

I'm a bit surprised by this finding.

It's as if the fixture congestion wasn't known beforehand and no one had the time and foresight to prepare. Are other clubs' fitness coaches and managers that bad at handling the flurry of games? 

How did teams in the past deal with it then? Doesn't seem anything new to me or something worth complaining about. Champions are the ones handling it the best or the ones lucky enough not to suffer too many injuries.

 

Klopp moaned no end about it, suffered in a cup game deploying youngsters, but Liverpool still handled it very well (some people interpreted the moan as weakness, but here you go).

 

Maybe it's not just the fixture congestion, or not at all. Maybe it's the price to pay for a type of football that becomes increasingly physical and predominantly fast-paced, which puts strain in itself on the joints and muscles.

And maybe more managers occasionally need to put more faith in their fringe players as starters instead of desperately clinging onto fielding their strongest starting XI every single week.

Now they certainly know.

Agree with all of this.

 

It's the same for everyone, they have the fixture list months in advance and every team in the league has a 25 man squad to pick 11 guys from. It's a managerial challenge sure but these guys make millions and the majority have years of experience dealing with the exact same situation annually. A little schedule balancing shouldn't be beyond them.

 

 

[Winchesterfox]

On 03/01/2020 at 22:24, Winchesterfox said:

An extra game over Christmas is fine, but why also schedule league midweek matches in early December and mid January when the fixture list is at its most congested and the weather is at its worst?   It makes no sense to me.  

 

On 03/01/2020 at 23:14, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

Because most people are off work and it's a good distraction from the in laws.

I'm talking about the midweek matches v Watford on 4 Dec and against West Ham on 22 Jan.  They could easily be rescheduled for earlier or later in the season.  

 

If your in-laws stay for that long over Christmas you need a human rights lawyer.