Injuries

[Sneag]

There's more to these injuries and long absences in my opinion - I don't know what it is but it seems abnormal, apart from last season which was virtually the same.

If there were so many that were impact related then there would be something in this. I am sure there was a Premier League club possibly Liverpool which had the same injury for a large number of players and changed their training routines.
In this case, we have had concussions and then largely impact injuries.

Definitely happened at Sunderland when Steve Bruce was manager, although for them it took sacking Bruce to sort out the problem. Bruce was stubborn apparently.

[ParisStag]

Maybe it's something to do with a small squad meaning players play more, are naturally more tired, and then just lose that slight edge of timing going into tackles or evading them - resulting in impact injuries. A lack of sharpness or something? Maybe I'm clutching at straws.

[gazza1988]

It isn't a "small" squad though. Look at the squad list that was posted a while ago here

We have 21 registered outfield players. James Gale is in the u21 list so that's 22. Anderson is inthere too but debatable whether he'd even made a start.

So 22 + 2gk is a squad of 24 players. So 2 full XI and 2 "spare" players.

It isn't a small squad. It's a regular sized squad with lots of injuries and a heavy bias in Central midfield.

As for injuries it could be a multitude of reasons.

1. Players fully committed and regularly putting their bodies in the line.

2. Players playing with injuries. Just asking for trouble. Also players who get injured during a game but decide to play on.

3. General fatigue. Clough said a few weeks ago that only 12 were training and they couldn't do full blooded session. Well this in of itself can cause injuries because players are then expected to do nearly 90 minutes of a proper game and we would likely tire before the game ends and we can get injuries from being tired by making an error in judgement and getting injured.

Football has become more and more of a squad game. So much so that tems can now make 5 subs (plus additional concussion subs) instead of just 3. We don't utilise those subs. We just play our best 11 players until they break down. Then expect a sub to perform well when he's had hardly any minutes to get his match fitness up. They then need a few games to get up to speed if they haven't got injured in the process. This lack of subs and general lack of options in some areas has lead to a higher injury rate.

I had a look at Leyton orients team, specifically their leading goalscorers.
Smyth has played in 36 league games(32 were starts) and played 90 minutes 8 times.
Sotiriou has played in 41 league games (22 are league starts) for them and did a full 90 minutes 8 times.
Moncur has played in 41 league games (33 were starts) for them and did a full 90 minutes 13 time.

Let's look at ours.
Akins has played in 36 league games (33 starts) for us and did a full 90 minutes 26 times.
Swan has played 26 league games (11 were starts) for us and did a full 90 minutes 5 times
Hewitt has played 39 league games (33 are starts) for us and did a full 90 minutes 29 times

The next 2 of our leading scorers are Lapslie and keillor-dunn but because they both only half a season thought it would be unfair so went with Hewitt.

Edit: just realised I probably shouldn't have used Hewitt because we've been light in defence all season so will have a high number of full 90s in the season.

[Beyond The Pale]

It would be interesting to see how many weeks all these injuries have totalled, & how long each player has been out for.

It must be heading up for a years worth.

[gazza1988]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/mansfie ... erein/3820

That's our squad by absences (it takes a while to load sometimes.)