Injured players not making themselves available to play

dichinero

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I don't think a manager would go out of his way to throw a player under the bus if the medical staff didn't report back to him that said player could actually play.

We've had our fair share of constantly injured players under Sir Alex, but he only mentioned Hargreaves and Saha as ones whose mentality could be questioned regarding injuries and playing.
In a big club like United, there would be a massive number of staff working with the first team and there is a chance that the manager and the medical staff do not communicate down to the intricacies of injuries. I've had injuries where I was running within the given time frame but the body did not respond to football but I was expected anyhow to be 100% in the first time frame.
 

Miscemayl

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Their careers looks over with Jose. Problem with getting rid of them is we won't have enough home grown players?

Especially if Rooney and maybe Carrick goes too.

I believe Jose would want them out but I suspect he'll be forced to keep them.
 

SirAF

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Their careers looks over with Jose. Problem with getting rid of them is we won't have enough home grown players?

Especially if Rooney and maybe Carrick goes too.

I believe Jose would want them out but I suspect he'll be forced to keep them.
Tuanzabe will likely be promoted to the first team next season. Should be enough with him and TFM?
 

RuudTom83

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United need everyone to be fighting for a first team place! not sat around nursing themselves back to full fitness for months on end.

Jose doesn't need a fully fit CB in late June he needs them now. If United come up 1-2 points short of a CL place this season, Jose might be even harder on them during the summer and they'll be looking for new clubs.

*This is all hesay and speculation on my part.
 

Attila

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If we keep Jones he shouldn't be any higher than 5th choice CB. He's too unreliable with all these injuries and according to Mourinho has become too cautious in his attempts to return for selection.
 

LawCharltonBest

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... Do you have any examples of this ever happening? There's no injury that will have the same severity but keep one out for a week and the other for months. If that were to occur it would be apparent that they didn't actually have the same injury.
Use your common sense. Of course it happens.

One examples already been given. John Terry breaking his toe and deciding to play through it. Phil Jones has hurt his toe and has been on his arse for 5 weeks.

Like Mourinho says, some players will play through pain, whereas for others they feel a little pain and they won't play.

A player paid what Phil Jones gets paid should not be ruling himself out of so many matches with injuries. It's not like he's ever broken his leg or anything. He gets a strain and he's too scared to risk anything
 

Attila

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Terry's toe injuries took months to fully healed. He tried to play as many games as he could. Did it make the injury worse, yes. Did it become more unplayable at the time? Not sure since he still played plenty & played at acceptable level. Did it affect his career long term? Not sure since he has respectable normal career length & quite successful.

Rooney made unthinkable return vs Bayern Munich in 2010. It affected his form latter the season, but in long term SAF found solution by buying more forwards the next seasons, not that he never played, pushed unfit players in crucial period. Our season was defined by lacking option than Rooney was not fit for the rest of it. Rio Vidic RVP were never really fit in SAF's latter years. They're just fit enough to play. Hagreaves backlash on us pushing him to take injection to play. Rooney again played with that rib injury in CL final. Ronaldo needed surgery on his ankle at the beginning of 08-09 season which was an injury he played through for awhile. Keane used to play with injuries...

We can say it is bad for players' career. However, at some stage where it's crucial to the club's season, it maybe worth the risk.
He said it didn't make the injury worse just longer to heal. I could see why someone like Jones would wait for it too fully heal if it was the start of the season but we are right at the end which makes it surprising that he isn't willing to help the team and then recover in the summer
"But certainly the doctors at Chelsea have told me my toe is not going to get any worse by having the injection and playing. If it was it would make it a different issue and it wouldn't be right for him to play. As it is, it might just take a little bit longer for it to heal.

"As a player, it's a short career and I don't want to miss one game for Chelsea or for England, or even a day's training. If that means having an injection, that's what I'll do." The injections numb the pain for about four hours and Terry said that although the toe does not feel any worse after a match, he has to be careful to "get the swelling down and be ready for the next game". That includes immediately "icing" the injury.

Terry has taken the injections with the approval of his club manager Jose Mourinho adding: "I've spoken to him [Mourinho] and if there was an issue about making it worse, maybe he would step in and say. But it would still come down to me. If I say I can play, I will." Still, with a long season ahead the prognosis is a concern.
 

KN5

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Not what I asked. You said it's possible they could return quicker from these particluar injuries. I asked how do you know this and did you say this anywhere before Jose's comments?



You equate injuries with being soft? Robson was injured a lot. Was he soft?
Mate, Jones is definitely a soft lad. If you don't think so you CLEARLY haven't watched him play for united, pretty much ever.
 

ti vu

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Every player will play with an injury over the course of the but surely you must know that all injuries are not and can't be the same. You are making an uninformed assumption that Bailey, Smalling and Jones are all carrying the same injury. So what if it's the end of the season, does that make a player's anatomy more adaptable to injuries? It's job of the manager to manage a squad and it's the job of the player to give his all as long as he's fit enough to have that expectation demanded of him!
There, it went to another point I made, Mourinho failed in giving his trust to Jones as part of squad building for this season.

While injuries can't be the same and different people are different, Mourinho is quite knowledgeable & experience in this field working with players. He studied sport science too. He may quite be capable to assess how close our players ready to close to get to playable condition.
 

Celestiale

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There, it went to another point I made, Mourinho failed in giving his trust to Jones as part of squad building for this season.

While injuries can't be the same and different people are different, Mourinho is quite knowledgeable & experience in this field working with players. He studied sport science too. He may quite be capable to assess how close our players ready to close to get to playable condition.
No he doesn't. He only could if he had the same amount of injuries, the same kinds of injuries. You can study what you want, if you didn't witness it yourself, all you are doing is making assumptions. No news that Mourinho has a small all-wise god-complex
 

C'est Moi Cantona

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Good, call them out, Jose clearly thinks they could play or he wouldn't do it, still I have no doubt we won't be seeing them anytime soon though.

These are two players we could really live without long term, and if this accelerates the process all well and good, unreliable, and not even top level when they are fit.
 

dichinero

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Do people realise when a person says they have broken their toe it does not exactly mean a fracture? Until we have an x-ray, the extent of the damage done to his broken toe is subject to speculation. I've seen different degrees of "broken" toes but the way people are citing John Terry, you'd think the man had compound fracture, so as the justify their argument. But I defy any man to play football for 10 minutes let alone an extended period with a proper broken toe, regardless of whatever painkiller he's on. No doubt that John Terry would have played through some pain and fair play to the man but that he was able to play for that long suggest that the injury was not as exaggerated as it is now.
 

ti vu

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No he doesn't. He only could if he had the same amount of injuries, the same kinds of injuries. You can study what you want, if you didn't witness it yourself, all you are doing is making assumptions. No news that Mourinho has a small all-wise god-complex
He was in the trade for even before he is officially a coach. He's not doing it by himself but working with medical department. Not all research/ study is made by inventing the wheel. Further studying can be based on previous knowledge made by aka own experience, info from previous people.

The only one who work solely based on mere speculation & assumptions is you. You sound like a guy who went into college and telling every professors you know better.
 

Djemba-Djemba

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If we're getting rid of a centre back it has to be Jones.

He's completely unreliable and it's been 6 years of this shit. He has to go

I'm sure if we make it to the Europa League final he'll be miraculously fit to get into the matchday squad like he was the last two finals we've made. Funny that.
 

dichinero

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There, it went to another point I made, Mourinho failed in giving his trust to Jones as part of squad building for this season.

While injuries can't be the same and different people are different, Mourinho is quite knowledgeable & experience in this field working with players. He studied sport science too. He may quite be capable to assess how close our players ready to close to get to playable condition.
Good point. He may have studied sport science but I don't know if he's a good one. Anyhow, he's not a doctor, a physiotherapist, a psychologist or a fitness coach neither is he the player in question. This is why we have a medical staff and even then they can still be wrong, the same way professional doctors occasionally get it wrong.
 

Celestiale

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He was in the trade for even before he is officially a coach. He's not doing it by himself but working with medical department. Not all research/ study is made by inventing the wheel. Further studying can be based on previous knowledge made by aka own experience, info from previous people.

The only one who work solely based on mere speculation & assumptions is you. You sound like a guy who went into college and telling every professors you know better.
Nah, no speculations. I was misdiagnosed a few times on and off pitch, i know what i am talking about. In the heat of the moment the coach doesn't care about his player, he thinks that players are machines that just work. My coach isn't any different in that respect. Btw i studied biomedical engineering amongst other things, so i know both sides of the coin (theoretical and "practical"). Played with broken finger, played with medial compartment syndrome (assumed to be a cramp by our physio :wenger:). In those things you just have to listen to the players, they know it best if they can play or not. Nothing to do with self-pity. In cases like Jones, where players injure themselves on the same spot again and again chronic pain is also a thing...leading to the player feeling the pain a lot worse then it's supposed to be by the body, due to nerve signal overload. This can lead to one player feeling a bruise like the next one a double fraction - nothing to do with being plaintive.
 

GrandJury

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It doesn't matter if they are actually injured to the point they can't play or feigning injuries as worse than they are, it still means they're a sick note and can't be relied on and need to be shipped off.
 

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So Smalling apparently only got out of a brace a week ago, and we have some absolute troglodytes on here believing that he should somehow superhumanly heal himself and throw himself on field tomorrow, all because Mourinho alluded to that. The retardation is real :wenger: If the player doesn't feel fit, then he's not fit. Smalling and Jones have never shown anything in the past to make me doubt their commitment. Therefore, even if they are "not making themselves available", then it's most likely because they're not fully fit, not out of some conscientious laziness

Disappointed in Pogba too, he really should have willed himself to fitness, letting the club down at a crucial time, obviously
 

ti vu

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Good point. He may have studied sport science but I don't know if he's a good one. Anyhow, he's not a doctor, a physiotherapist, a psychologist or a fitness coach neither is he the player in question. This is why we have a medical staff and even then they can still be wrong, the same way professional doctors occasionally get it wrong.
We don't have further info, but it's unlikely Mourinho doesn't work with the medical staff & on the data they collect from players.

You can dismiss the seriousness of Terry's toe injury, but same time we don't know about the extend of our players. What if Jones have the same syndrome like Sturridge which makes the injury worse than it really is.
 

Attila

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So Smalling apparently only got out of a brace a week ago, and we have some absolute troglodytes on here believing that he should somehow superhumanly heal himself and throw himself on field tomorrow, all because Mourinho alluded to that. The retardation is real :wenger: If the player doesn't feel fit, then he's not fit. Smalling and Jones have never shown anything in the past to make me doubt their commitment. Therefore, even if they are "not making themselves available", then it's most likely because they're not fully fit, not out of some conscientious laziness

Disappointed in Pogba too, he really should have willed himself to fitness, letting the club down at a crucial time, obviously
Ferguson didn't have that line of thinking with Hargreaves

Mourinho probably knows the extent of their injuries with the information he gets from the medical team. I doubt he's just saying this for no reason
 

Celestiale

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Ferguson didn't have that line of thinking with Hargreaves

Mourinho probably knows the extent of their injuries with the information he gets from the medical team. I doubt he's just saying this for no reason
Ferguson got it wrong as well.
Noone is saying stuff for no reason. Doesn't mean that they have a clue about it though. Mourinho thinks he knows everything - he doesn't.
 

Cloud7

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On a purely anecdotal level, I've seen many people say that Rooney has never been the same player since that Bayern game when he was rushed back
The two seasons following this were two of his best seasons for us though. The second half of the 2010-2011 season when he came back after the new contract was all about him, and the 2011-2012 season was his best goalscoring season ever, in addition to him being one of the major creative forces in the team that year.
 

ti vu

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Nah, no speculations. I was misdiagnosed a few times on and off pitch, i know what i am talking about. In the heat of the moment the coach doesn't care about his player, he thinks that players are machines that just work. My coach isn't any different in that respect. Btw i studied biomedical engineering amongst other things, so i know both sides of the coin (theoretical and "practical"). Played with broken finger, played with medial compartment syndrome (assumed to be a cramp by our physio :wenger:). In those things you just have to listen to the players, they know it best if they can play or not. Nothing to do with self-pity. In cases like Jones, where players injure themselves on the same spot again and again chronic pain is also a thing...leading to the player feeling the pain a lot worse then it's supposed to be by the body, due to nerve signal overload. This can lead to one player feeling a bruise like the next one a double fraction - nothing to do with being plaintive.
But there is huge difference between the quality of medical support top sportmen being afforded vs regular medical quality. I felt for you there as I was being similarly misdiagnosed for myself.

Another thing is this is not really heat of the moment. These injury has been monitored for weeks. The end of your post which I agree, can be the key there. Chronic pain can happen even physical condition is Okay/ not 100% fit. Chronic pain can't just be expected to be fully healed physically since in football, a contact sport reoccurring injury is normal, playing less than 100% is normal... It's more about mentality which seems like what Mourinho often tried to imply. Injections, pain killing is a way to help to bypass that chronic pain, while the strong mentality to accept to go with this routine is still players' choice.

Remember last time Jones said he only had a bruise & would only take days to recover. In reality it took weeks. Players know themselves better... Not in this case I think. And you're academically educated, then you should know many footballers ain't that smart to understand their own condition. Quite some players need mentors to help them. Many can end up with bad advisors too. Again it's opinion game. One thing I keep repeat, Mourinho, our medical team have more solid info on the condition of the players.
 
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Miscemayl

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Tuanzabe will likely be promoted to the first team next season. Should be enough with him and TFM?
That just covers Rooney and Carrick (assuming he retires). Will need two more if we want to get rid of Jones and Smalling too.
 

Faetheshire86

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Firstly I think it's important to point out that no two injuries are identical, in the same way no two people are identical. Injuries range from discomfort, pain, restricting movement to not being able to stand... with plenty of degrees of separation between each. Its also important to separate a persons pain thresholds (ability to deal with pain) and and their injury-proneness. The later being much more important in football - I would rather have a guy who misses 2 games a season with a broken nail, than a guy who misses 20 games with a broken leg, but came back a month early to play through the pain barrier.

As for the case of Smalling and Jones (or any player), their stock as footballers and their worth to United should be judge by how often they make themselves available to play and then how well they perform when they do play, regardless of their reasons for not playing. Ultimately their careers will be defined by their choices to make themselves available or not - play and become a hero or a crock, don't play and come back stronger or loose favour.

People who are calling for their heads because they wont play through an injury (regardless of where on that spectrum of injuries they are and regardless of their ability to deal with pain) are being incredibly harsh. Just to be clear, this isn't two guys who are being told there is nothing wrong with them medically and are refusing to play, this is two guys who have well documented injuries who are being asked to play through them.

What really does baffle me though is how this whole debate came to transpire. At the end of the press conference when asked about something else Jose decides to blurt out the stuff about making themselves available for City. It certainly didn't feel premeditated. Can't help but think that it wouldn't have been better to ask these guys in private, explain the situation and how important it is for the season, maybe give them some incentives or reassurances that will make them feel better about putting their bodies on the line? I also find it funny that the guys who are having a go about soft modern footballers have nothing to say about the fact that the reason they are being asked to come back early is to give Bailly a rest after how many consecutive games? 2,500 like Cal Ripken? 300 like Friedel? Nope... 9. Single digits. I don't get it.
 

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Nah, sorry. It's typical Mourinho magical thinking to act as if a player not coming back from injury faster by pure force of will is a character flaw. It's established science that rushing players back after injury when they're not fully healed can cause more injuries, or worse injuries. Plus they're unlikely to play well if they're in pain. It's a stupid thing to do for all concerned.

Jones' problem is not a lack of courage or grit. Clearly. We've all seen how he actually gets these injuries. His problem is that he's too injury prone.
 

dichinero

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Nah, sorry. It's typical Mourinho magical thinking to act as if a player not coming back from injury faster by pure force of will is a character flaw. It's established science that rushing players back after injury when they're not fully healed can cause more injuries, or worse injuries. Plus they're unlikely to play well if they're in pain. It's a stupid thing to do for all concerned.
This

The funny thing is that such debate never arose before José. It was widely accepted that players needed to be fully fit for us to expect them to perform highly and as expected. There was hardly a moan that an injured player showed signs of a weak mentality. If Kompany was a United today, I'm sure that there will be some calling him mentally weak because he couldn't make himself "available" for a game of football. You can will your mind into shape but you can't just snap your fingers and become super. It's not football, it's common sense.

Football is first a physical sport. That's 101.
Jones' problem is not a lack of courage or grit. Clearly. We've all seen how he actually gets these injuries. His problem is that he's too injury prone.
This. Again.

I think people are buying into Jose's rant because the likes of Smalling and Jones don't fall into the so called "world class" players. I doubt anyone would call out a bigger name for not risking more damage by playing through injury. They'd probably be saying stuff like "it's better he rest so that he can come back to the awesome form and potential he has"
 

dichinero

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Why's he not angry at Pogba for being injured?
Because part of being world class is that you have the mutant gene X, which means that their bodies are always ready to player and never feel pain.
 

Kag

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Why would an injured player make themselves available to play?

Mourinho is making an arse out of himself. As suggested by @Brightonian, there is no medical gain to be had by rushing players back from injury if they aren't fit to play. If they were genuinely fit then they would be playing games.

In two interviews Mourinho has managed to turn Smalling and Jones into a pair of lazy, uncommitted and (let's be honest) unprofessional footballers, accusations that have never, at any point in their careers, been thrown in their direction. They've worked (and regularly played) under some very demanding coaches, too.

Yet all it takes is Mourinho to open his gob and somehow so many people jump on yet another bandwagon. It's frankly ridiculous. If he told some of you lot to jump off a bridge you'd be doing it via cartwheel.
 

dichinero

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Why would an injured player make themselves available to play?

Mourinho is making an arse out of himself. As suggested by @Brightonian, there is no medical gain to be had by rushing players back from injury if they aren't fit to play. If they were genuinely fit then they would be playing games.

In two interviews Mourinho has managed to turn Smalling and Jones into a pair of lazy, uncommitted and (let's be honest) unprofessional footballers, accusations that have never, at any point in their careers, been thrown in their direction. They've worked (and regularly played) under some very demanding coaches, too.

Yet all it takes is Mourinho to open his gob and somehow so many people jump on yet another bandwagon. It's frankly ridiculous. If he told some of you lot to jump off a bridge you'd be doing it via cartwheel.
This is something worth considering. The two have them have been managed by Hodgson, Allardyce, Ferguson, Moyes and LvG. One thing these managers have in common is not their tactical nous but hard drills and grit. Not one of them complained about either one, especially in their younger years when it would have been expected. I just find it hard to believe that all of a sudden that they are unprofessional players. It's simply ridiculous.
 

Kag

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This is something worth considering. The two have them have been managed by Hodgson, Allardyce, Ferguson, Moyes and LvG. One thing these managers have in common is not their tactical nous but hard drills and grit. Not one of them complained about either one, especially in their younger years when it would have been expected. I just find it hard to believe that all of a sudden that they are unprofessional players. It's simply ridiculous.
Exactly. Say what you want about the likes of Moyes, Big Sam and Hodgson, but they set high expectations and they don't accept shitty work rate and commitment. Van Gaal and Ferguson have fallen out with more players than I can even remember over the years - mostly because of the attitude and commitment to the (dare I say it) vision and philosophy.

It's not as if Smalling and Jones have been working under Bobby Martinez and Bobby bloody Bradley, is it? They've worked under some of the hardest bastards about.
 

hubbuh

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90% of those "fans" are fat couch potatoes that have never done any proper contact sports what so ever, and would probably start crying with a stretched ligament. Best to just ignore them, just like in politics.
Not including you, obviously, who is no doubt one of the rare exceptions to the bullshit rule you just made up on the spot. The Internet is getting burned to the ground by weird condescending wankers like you so congrats on that one.
 

Insanity

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Why would an injured player make themselves available to play?

Mourinho is making an arse out of himself. As suggested by @Brightonian, there is no medical gain to be had by rushing players back from injury if they aren't fit to play. If they were genuinely fit then they would be playing games.

In two interviews Mourinho has managed to turn Smalling and Jones into a pair of lazy, uncommitted and (let's be honest) unprofessional footballers, accusations that have never, at any point in their careers, been thrown in their direction. They've worked (and regularly played) under some very demanding coaches, too.

Yet all it takes is Mourinho to open his gob and somehow so many people jump on yet another bandwagon. It's frankly ridiculous. If he told some of you lot to jump off a bridge you'd be doing it via cartwheel.
He has come across as an idiot on the issue. Earlier in the season he praised Smalling for being tough and playing through injury in the Chelsea game and then a few weeks later criticized him for not playing with pain. Because of that "playing with an injury" Smalling had to miss a month due to injury. Jones was also hailed as the warrior prince for playing games on a stretch, and now he is soft cnut who needs to toughen up. The treatment and comments on Shaw have been totally pathetic too.

It's quite baffling how he changes narratives to suit him. All the excuses for any under performance in the future are already in. A manager should hardly have any say in when a player should or should not come back from injuries. It should be left to the club's medical staff and the player himself. They are in the best position to assess the situation.

I wouldn't mind if we replaced both Smalling and Jones in the summer because we cannot continue with two injury prone central defenders any longer. We need players who can be relied upon if we have to challenge for honors. Though, I hate the shoddy treatment that has been meted to them. It's flabbergasting how Jose expects them to, "make themselves available for Thursday". Seems like he needs a new player to bag on every week. It's quite pathetic.