Why so many injuries?

[SerenityNigh]

Total injury record over the past five seasons, from the clubs who have been ever-presents in the PL the past five seasons.

We're somewhere in the upper-middle with 89 injuries; five clubs have more. Not surprisingly Arsenal are up there; as are other Champions League / Euro League clubs who play a lot more games through the season. Interestingly Chelsea seem to get off pretty light with injuries - maybe due to a bigger squad / greater ability to rotate the playing XI?

Anyways, looks like we do get more than our fair share of injuries; however we're nowhere near as bad as Arsenal. Arguably though, due to our small-ish squads over the past few years, the number of injuries we have had has impacted us more.

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YAAAASS

Our players are mostly old

This probably has a lot to do with it. If you factored in squad size and player age, I wonder how that affects injuries. (Chelsea's smaller squad actually probably reduces injuries*)

In American sports, which have strict squad limits that are only rarely deviated from (+ or -) injuries are easy to track against a baseline. It's much harder to compare between teams that play more games or have more players.

*To be more clear, injuries that occur in matches can be control tested, and reduced to injuries per minute, with each team given 990 or so minutes per match. Total injuries, however, include training and other games played, which increases injury counts.

 

[Frank Halfcoate]

Lack of stretches and warm up routines, over indulgence on incorrect calorie intake, poor technique and form, take your pick.

I think we would need to know a little bit more about just what these chaps do when not playing first team games in order to formulate the answer to this, it's been a problem for years with us.

 

[Blackwell Livermore]

You forgot Richard Wright and his ping pong accident

 

[Big Fat Sam]

Wouldn't be arsed if it was the likes of Schneiderlin, Williams, Stekelenberg, Jagielka, Martina, et al. But since our injuries have been Mori, Coleman, Baines, Sigurdsson now then it's obviously going to hurt us a lot. Last week was the first time this season we've been able to play our first choice full backs in the same side - that's crazy.

 

[Eggs]

That's actually very easy to test, just compare injuries of EFC players home and away, and compare injuries of visiting players to Goodison. If the pitch is contributing to injuries, you'll see both elevated rates of injury to EFC players and visiting players (although this probably won't be as high) when playing at Goodison vs other venues. If you look at 10 or more years of data, that should rule out variations, and you'll have an answer.

Some nerd in the Goodison back office probably already has that data. If they don't, they need to be all fired.

..to be fair, I think most of the pitches are the same these days. They are soft for an inch or so and then firm. It’s why we don’t see muddy shorts etc. I’d hate it myself.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Our medical staff just let players play on with twisted knees. Completely inept.

 

[SerenityNigh]

..to be fair, I think most of the pitches are the same these days. They are soft for an inch or so and then firm. It’s why we don’t see muddy shorts etc. I’d hate it myself.

Well if there is any effect of Goodison, it will almost certainly be outed by the data.

But the mud you can create yourself with a good curry the night before.

 

[navidson]

You forgot Richard Wright and his ping pong accident

Not a patch on him falling over a sign saying 'Do not play in the goalmouth' and twisting his ankle

Oh, and him falling out of a loft packing his suitcases away

 

[trueblue84]

Not a patch on him falling over a sign saying 'Do not play in the goalmouth' and twisting his ankle

Oh, and him falling out of a loft packing his suitcases away

He does look like a proper simpleton...

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Ligament injuries could be due to inadequate recovery, strength training and preparation. The surface you play on can also contribute. They are a known hazard of the game though.

Breaks are often poor luck.

 

[gonetomorrow]

We're just an unlucky bunch of c###s

 

[fandjango]

You can’t really blame poor medical procedures for broken legs

 

[Jonte]

Solution?

Relocate to Formby beach.

Endurance/Strength/Fitness training to be conducted in soft sand and dunes (with due consideration for environment).

Five, six, seven-a-side etc to be conducted on wetter, thus, harder sand.

Technique practised on mixture of both sandy surfaces.

Two thirds of bleep test/shuttle runs to be conducted with ball at feet (Roberto had that aspect of training dead right - again, on both types of surface).

Don’t over-stretch (joints become over-extended).

Remove weight training from the regime (especially leg and lower body) altogether. Weight exercises tend to strengthen muscle groups in isolation and with the best will in the world, one muscle group will become stronger than the other, effectively rendering the weaker group a weak point. Also makes the lower back susceptible to injury, spreading uneven loads to other leg areas I.e. calf strains.
They can become bodybuilders when they retire.

Never run with a weight on your back: this alters your gait and leads to the development of long-term injury.

Can’t cater for broken legs.

 

[Lord Buckethead]

Three different managers, almost certainly more than three different ideas about how to get the best physically out of the players.
Players bodies get used to training regimes, and any changes to that takes readjustment as it works the body differently and can provide areas of weakness for a while.

That and we could always ban our players from tackling, I see that Snides is ahead of the curve on this one already.

 

[blulouie]

Total injury record over the past five seasons, from the clubs who have been ever-presents in the PL the past five seasons.

We're somewhere in the upper-middle with 89 injuries; five clubs have more. Not surprisingly Arsenal are up there; as are other Champions League / Euro League clubs who play a lot more games through the season. Interestingly Chelsea seem to get off pretty light with injuries - maybe due to a bigger squad / greater ability to rotate the playing XI?

Anyways, looks like we do get more than our fair share of injuries; however we're nowhere near as bad as Arsenal. Arguably though, due to our small-ish squads over the past few years, the number of injuries we have had has impacted us more.

View attachment 44792

Interestingly the teams with the fewest injuries occupy the relegation places in the Premier league.