Pre-season 2023-24

[boltonboris]

Not disagreeing with you ghost, just the opposite. Common sense will prevail

Hopefully, mate.

I'm not sure my nerves can handle another bad injury to a key player.

Baxter and Santos both need to stay fit.

Any more major injuries wouldn't so much be the shit hitting the fan as a manure wagon hitting a wind turbine.

We’ve got one major injury, it’s bad but it also pretty much happens to every club each season.

What we need to do is the sports science work to prevent the niggling muscle injuries as far as possible. We lost too many players last season with the ‘oh we worked them too hard too soon’ line being particularly annoying.

Yes it sounds too much like "Bag of bricks up Winter Hill" stuff, when you'd think we'd be smart enough to take a more biomechanical approach

[Worthy4England]

Agree - excluding "impact injuries and the odd freak" either we're very, very unlucky or something isn't quite right. I still don't really get how we can so often blame the pitch for injuries. It is what it is, you just need to fcking run on it...I'd like to see some stats comparing us to other squads - because I'm not close enough to any other squads to understand if we're about the same "volume" - but it does seem a highly occurring thing. Maybe in the last 40 years ago hamstrings and ACL's have evolved...

[Prufrock]

The distance pace and load going through players' bodies certainly has though.

And cruciate injuries certainly happened back in the day, it's just the player then often disappeared as they often had to retire.

Best did one of his cruciates and barely played for a couple of years. The N Irish national team doctors approach was to give him a block of wood to bite on while he got in there and had a rummage.

[GhostoftheBok]

We’ve got one major injury, it’s bad but it also pretty much happens to every club each season.

What we need to do is the sports science work to prevent the niggling muscle injuries as far as possible. We lost too many players last season with the ‘oh we worked them too hard too soon’ line being particularly annoying.

They're restaffing that department and updating the suites for just that reason.

[GhostoftheBok]

Agree - excluding "impact injuries and the odd freak" either we're very, very unlucky or something isn't quite right. I still don't really get how we can so often blame the pitch for injuries.

We sign players with known injury histories, because we get more for our money that way.

Iredale and Sheehan both did their knees in "unforeseeable" events, but they'd done them before and were actually obvious risks.

Then you've got the need to be right on the edge for the fitness required to sprint as much as we ask players to.

Nlundulu came in last season and got a hamstring injury almost immediately, having had a history of them at Saints and being given lighter duties at times by Cheltenham.

Evatt would likely argue there that getting Dan up to fitness will reduce his hamstring risk, which is true - but if you do his hamstring you've clearly cocked up.

This summer we've signed Baxter, who has barely played recently due to recurring injury issues. Then we've got Forrester with a litany of niggling injuries and Nludnulu of dodgy hamstrings fame. From last Jan we have Randy in the "knee injury waiting to happen" category.

Throw in a sub-par medical department and training on a swamp and you're going to see lads drop like flies. Soft ground is horrendous for strain-related injuries.

Hopefully the money spent this summer will allow us to take full advantage of our "value for money" injury-prone gang, with drained training grounds and better medical stuff.

If it doesn't October/November will not be fun.

[Worthy4England]

Putting mitigation to one side for a minute, do you think we're getting higher than average injuries? ...or am I just wrong on that? if we do Baxter's hammy (and I know it's not impossible for a keeper ), then I'll really start to worry.

[TANGODANCER]

Putting mitigation to one side for a minute, do you think we're getting higher than average injuries? ...or am I just wrong on that? if we do Baxter's hammy (and I know it's not impossible for a keeper ), then I'll really start to worry.

The greet speech for new signings tour begins with "On your left is the Quinton Fortune recovery lounge where we hope you don;t have to visit often!"

[GhostoftheBok]

Putting mitigation to one side for a minute, do you think we're getting higher than average injuries? ...or am I just wrong on that? if we do Baxter's hammy (and I know it's not impossible for a keeper ), then I'll really start to worry.

I can't be arsed doing proper analysis of it, but I'd say we get more than average. I think the club's own internals probably show that, or they'd not be binning off the doctor and reworking the medical set-up.

[Worthy4England]

Putting mitigation to one side for a minute, do you think we're getting higher than average injuries? ...or am I just wrong on that? if we do Baxter's hammy (and I know it's not impossible for a keeper ), then I'll really start to worry.

I can't be arsed doing proper analysis of it, but I'd say we get more than average. I think the club's own internals probably show that, or they'd not be binning off the doctor and reworking the medical set-up.

I'm grand with not doing the analysis, it felt like something that needed looking at...

[boltonboris]

Speaking of 'playing in a swamp', I see we haven't got a new pitch for the stadium! They must think it's got another year in it

[Worthy4England]

^^ Welcome to our three new signings...

England Front Row.jpg (11.4 KiB) Viewed 13882 times

[Worthy4England]

The distance pace and load going through players' bodies certainly has though.

And cruciate injuries certainly happened back in the day, it's just the player then often disappeared as they often had to retire.

Best did one of his cruciates and barely played for a couple of years. The N Irish national team doctors approach was to give him a block of wood to bite on while he got in there and had a rummage.

You do know how fast international rugby players run on comparatively very cut up pitches, yeah?

[BWFC_Insane]

The distance pace and load going through players' bodies certainly has though.

And cruciate injuries certainly happened back in the day, it's just the player then often disappeared as they often had to retire.

Best did one of his cruciates and barely played for a couple of years. The N Irish national team doctors approach was to give him a block of wood to bite on while he got in there and had a rummage.

You do know how fast international rugby players run on comparatively very cut up pitches, yeah?

Isn’t it the nature of the sport though? In rugby you are doing less abrupt turning motions and aren’t being tackled round the legs by another bloke kicking you as much. But there are plenty of injuries to shoulders and way more concussions.

Also academic studies have shown there are more injuries in average in Rugby than football.

[Worthy4England]

The distance pace and load going through players' bodies certainly has though.

And cruciate injuries certainly happened back in the day, it's just the player then often disappeared as they often had to retire.

Best did one of his cruciates and barely played for a couple of years. The N Irish national team doctors approach was to give him a block of wood to bite on while he got in there and had a rummage.

You do know how fast international rugby players run on comparatively very cut up pitches, yeah?

Isn’t it the nature of the sport though? In rugby you are doing less abrupt turning motions and aren’t being tackled round the legs by another bloke kicking you as much. But there are plenty of injuries to shoulders and way more concussions.

Also academic studies have shown there are more injuries in average in Rugby than football.

Surely, the discussion was around how often we seem to be blaming the pitch for ACL's and hammy's? Not a narrative on which sport accumulates the most injuries and in which part of the body, generally?

[Prufrock]

The 4 of them on a pitch who don't shop at Jacamo, you mean?

And plenty of them get injured, just for most of them their shoulders fall apart before their knees

Seem to remember one Anthony Watson getting a pretty bad ACL too.

In all seriousness, and this is my go to and genuine reply wherever you get the non -sports watching types thinking they're insightful with their "oh look at the footballers on the ground while rugby players bash into each other and just get up, aren't the footballers soft".

The main difference is that a lot more of the contact and other physicality (lines to run etc) is much more predictable in rugby. You (largely) know when you're going to get contact, when you get the ball your route to the try line is largely a straight line or single curve.

Sure you can get ankle tapped, or need to drop a shoulder, and of course the contact itself is much bigger, but football is constant high intensity changes of directions, jumps and bumps and weird weight loads going through your limbs, and so why you get more of those knee and ankle injuries.

[Worthy4England]

Yes but I'm not trying to compare the two sports top to bottom. We were discussing ACLs and hammys which have a high incidence of "Oh look at the pitch"

You can make a case for most things as you see fit and whilst I hear your argument, I'm not convinced it's correct. I didn't come off a football pitch thinking ohh I've done a lot more high intensity changes in that than last weeks rugby. I think that's tosh! (But it'd be quite interesting to see some comparative stats )

Edit: I did read a bit of research from Portsmouth/Cardiff/Birmingham's sports science departments, that seemed to indicate that todays footballers are not the same build as they used to be - taller, more willowy, lower BMI, not as muscular than perhaps in yesteryear and this in part is due to the notion they're playing on better pitches (which is likely broadly correct). There's a lot fewer in the "Rooney" body shape, smaller, bulkier, more muscular etc. - Rooney was the comparitor they used, not one I've added. So I do think as a result, they're probably less capable of dealing with a bit of mud.

So it sort of comes down to us just picking inferior products than we need to play at Burton away.

[Prufrock]

My point isn't really about pitches tbf. I think it'll be a factor, though my non-scientific reckon is that v hard pitches, even if otherwise immaculate are worse than softer good ones, and that quagmires are probably bad but maybe in a different way (ankles more than knees maybe). I think it's more about how much more distance, and how much higher intensity sprints turns etc your modern footballer does, even on a good pitch (my reckon is also that modern prem footballers who never play on anything other than a carpet, even in training get more of the ACL type injuries).

Even your box to box Brian Robson types weren't doing the distance of the modern lot. In one of their major tournament wins Xavi averaged something daft like 16k a game for Spain. That's going to take its toll. And then there's the top speed suddenly change 135° going the other way.

Modern footballers have that a lot more then olden days footballers, and I think they have it a lot more then modern rugby players. Not to say one is less physically demanding than the other, but that is a different type.

Also suspect (again, just my reckon) that the fact tackling is a lot less agricultural these days means you get a lot fewer pure contact injuries, and so ligaments and the type stand out a lot more.

[Prufrock]

The Rooney point is an interesting one, and I think a different way of saying the same thing I'm trying to.

As pitches improve, pure physical strength is less important, and so that selects for more willowy run all day types (though as I've said elsewhere, they're not exactly waifs!) who would've been bullied out of it 20 years ago even.

[GhostoftheBok]

I decided to come to Chester a day early to give the kids a day out. It's pissing it down. Looks like the same tomorrow. Should be fun.

[Worthy4England]

https://news.sky.com/story/an-epidemic- ... g-12921045

Interesting article about ACL "epidemic" in the women's game. 2.5 - 3.5 times more likely to do ACL's as men. I think we can all draw the necessary conclusions from this correlation.