Do you mean just players over the age of 21?
How bad have our injuries really been this season?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
has there been any talk from the club, or respected sources, about the injuries? Look at today, arsenal have zero injuries or suspensions, despite a far more intense season.
Whether you think its a mitigating factor for ten hag or not, as a standalone issue it really is bordering on farcical/disgraceful. Our unavailable team today is comfortably stronger than the available one. Ranting and emotion aside, can somebody make any decent attempt to explain this and whether theres a way out of it
Whether you think its a mitigating factor for ten hag or not, as a standalone issue it really is bordering on farcical/disgraceful. Our unavailable team today is comfortably stronger than the available one. Ranting and emotion aside, can somebody make any decent attempt to explain this and whether theres a way out of it
One thing I have heard on the grapevine is that Ten Hag has a “one size fits all” fitness policy. Where players are driven equally hard to be as fit as possible and run as much as possible during training sessions. That is as far as that information extends.
if it is true, then it would seem to be a pretty big reasons for why we are seeing so many injuries, especially in defence. While the foundation for fitness has to largely be the same, defenders naturally have to cover a lot less ground than other players, and if they are older, this is a huge shock to the body. Generally speaking, as I understand it, most clubs have the finer details of fitness work tailored to the individual age, position, injury predisposition, and current condition of players. But we don’t under Ten Hag.
I have also heard that some players have been getting conflicting advice from their personal trainers or external doctors/surgeons. Someone posted above how Casemiro was told he was fit to play but consulted his doctor back in Spain who told him he wasn’t. I hadn’t heard any specific examples like that, but it certainly backs up what I was told.
What seems very, very clear to me, is that we need a complete overhaul of our medical and fitness department to integrate “best in class” technology, data, and personnel, to create an industry leading fitness department that operates almost autonomously from the head coach and his staff. That way when you change the head coach and his back room team, you keep these best in class assets in place. Their approach can be tweaked in concert with the head coach, but ultimately having the fittest and healthiest squad possible, is a universal principle surely?
The training and playing loads players have these days, mean that a rigorous evidence based approach is required. I would not leave it to the discretion of each head coach. Not at all. Players are our most valuable assets and as such the club should have the absolute best facilities and personnel to manage those assets irrespective of whether the coach is Pep PED Guardiola, or Olé Gunnar do what he wants Solksjaer.
if it is true, then it would seem to be a pretty big reasons for why we are seeing so many injuries, especially in defence. While the foundation for fitness has to largely be the same, defenders naturally have to cover a lot less ground than other players, and if they are older, this is a huge shock to the body. Generally speaking, as I understand it, most clubs have the finer details of fitness work tailored to the individual age, position, injury predisposition, and current condition of players. But we don’t under Ten Hag.
I have also heard that some players have been getting conflicting advice from their personal trainers or external doctors/surgeons. Someone posted above how Casemiro was told he was fit to play but consulted his doctor back in Spain who told him he wasn’t. I hadn’t heard any specific examples like that, but it certainly backs up what I was told.
What seems very, very clear to me, is that we need a complete overhaul of our medical and fitness department to integrate “best in class” technology, data, and personnel, to create an industry leading fitness department that operates almost autonomously from the head coach and his staff. That way when you change the head coach and his back room team, you keep these best in class assets in place. Their approach can be tweaked in concert with the head coach, but ultimately having the fittest and healthiest squad possible, is a universal principle surely?
The training and playing loads players have these days, mean that a rigorous evidence based approach is required. I would not leave it to the discretion of each head coach. Not at all. Players are our most valuable assets and as such the club should have the absolute best facilities and personnel to manage those assets irrespective of whether the coach is Pep PED Guardiola, or Olé Gunnar do what he wants Solksjaer.
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What I said. First team squad.
CB partnerships this season:
Arsenal: 3
United: 14
That really is the alpha and omega of it all.
Arsenal: 3
United: 14
That really is the alpha and omega of it all.
The only context to that is Man. United are a long way from challenging for the league even if Varane-Martinez (I assume the first choice CBs) had stayed fit for more of this season.
As I've always said better comparison is with Newcastle. They must be in double figures for CB duos aswell given their injuries.
We haven't had as many. However we started the season with Konsa-Mings and then Mings did his ACL on opening day of the season. Over January-Feb we had Pau Torres and Konsa out at the same time for over a month and went with Diego Carlos-Lenglet in those games.
Brighton also had loads of defensive injuries in the winter period.
All these teams also had key long term injuries in other parts of the pitch. Harvey Barnes basically been Newcastle's Mason Mount this season for example.
It explains the defensive woes to a large degree. Not sure why our frontline has been so gash. Rashford in particular.
I don't agree with Wazza,
Forcing the players to play games when they aren't 100% fit to play, is exactly the reason why we end up in this horrible situation this season.
Just look at the number of times this season when we all thought Licha was fine to play, he got injured badly and was sidelined 3/4 of the season.
Rashford is probably because his contract was running out last season. He had the best season of his career last season, as he scored 30 goals and was our player of the season, but this season, having gotten his contract extension, he’s been shit.
This is something I have been thinking about. That some players could play through the pain. However, as long as doctors says no it is a no.
Wouldn't be surprised if half of them are back same week as TheFA Cup final
Nah just sounds like rooney talking bollocks. Only one questionable is rashford but he's always carrying knocks.
He's not saying we're forcing players to play. He said our players are feigning injuries because they're more interested in their pay check than fighting for the club. And he's correct.
I don't think that's what he said. Is he not saying they aren't actually injured?
So you disregard the injuries suffered by the likes of Amad & Mainoo ?
No. Because they’re part of our first team squad. Why are people struggling with this?!
No I mean the first team squad.
Because they aren’t named on the 25 man squad list registered at the PL. When certain media outlets compile their list of injuries they exclude under 21 year olds because they aren’t counted in thePL registered squad and since certain PL teams have played in the EFL trophy all players that ( under 21 olds) are given a squad number.
Ah. Ok then. Well that’s stupid. The injury record should include everyone in the first team squad. And it’s not hard to work out who those players are.
That's a pretty dumb way compiling a list of injured players
But injuries apparently haven’t impacted our season according to some on here.
Of course they have impacted whereas clearly other clubs like Arsenal have had little to no issues this season but is that really the story this season ?
If you had a choice of all of our best players (based on previous performance with United and at other clubs) then yesterday we were missing the following players due to injury, form or politics:
Shaw, Varane, Martinez, Fernandez, Rashford, Martial, Sancho, Greenwood.
That's eight first team starters that would walk into yesterdays team. And that's not including Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia and Mount currently injured.
So whether you blame the manager, the medical staff, the Carrington pitches or whatever...to say that injuries haven't impacted our performances this season doesn't seem to fit with the reality.
Shaw, Varane, Martinez, Fernandez, Rashford, Martial, Sancho, Greenwood.
That's eight first team starters that would walk into yesterdays team. And that's not including Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia and Mount currently injured.
So whether you blame the manager, the medical staff, the Carrington pitches or whatever...to say that injuries haven't impacted our performances this season doesn't seem to fit with the reality.
No it's not, as there's clearly issues going on, but the extent of injuries puts an asterix on most other sections up for discussion.
I have read a Norwegian article on united.no, where Wayne Rooney states that he is 100% sure that some of the United players can easily play and are not injured anymore, but they are saving themselves for the FA Cup final and the EC. They just claim that they are still injured, but can easily play. I really hope this is not true.
Source: https://www.united.no/nyheter/tror-skadde-spillere-sparer-seg/1301460
Source: https://www.united.no/nyheter/tror-skadde-spillere-sparer-seg/1301460
Our injury fc team is legit though. We will win the hospital cup easy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cq55wy2qx21o
We had the most separate injuries in the Premier League this season, at 45.
We had the most separate injuries in the Premier League this season, at 45.
According to the BBC, we had more injuries than anyone else. tell me something I didn't know... 45 separate injuries. I'd attached the graphic if only the forum would let me....
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But apparently every club has them so it’s not any kind of reason for any underperformance this season and to believe so or to use it to explain why we have underperformed is to be making excuses and part of a fan club for Ten Hag.
Hand that to any manager and watch them struggle hard
Top 4 on that list all regressed this season except Chelsea but, they had a lot of their players come back for the 2nd half of the season, right?
Even this graphic has forgotten about Malacia.
The big one was Martinez, but other than him, a lot of those injuries, did we honestly expect those players to be fit all season?
So how come we have so many injuries. Something must be off and I hope Ineos fixes that asap
OK, but now imagine that Diego Carlos and Lenglet were out too, as well as both of your LBs.
That has been the situation United have found themselves in for most of this season. For prolonged periods, we have had our 8th and 9th choice options at CB and essentially no LBs.
Now, this is not really an "excuse" because its our own fault...but it's impossible to have a good season if you physically can't field a defence half the time.
Villa finished 8pts above United in 4th spot. I am absolutely certain that United would have picked up another 9pts had two of Varane, Maguire, Shaw or Martinez been fit for 35+ games.
Again, our own fault as these are repeat issues that we haven't addressed and some of these players are repeat offenders...but we've had by far the worst of it RE : injuries this season. It's not just about total injuries, its about relentless injuries in one or two key positions.
10 injuries might have relatively little impact on a squad if they are fringe / minor players and spread across multiple positions, but I defy any club do lose 8 defenders at once for half the season + and do well
Wanted to provide some context...
Pau Torres started 27 / 38 games
Konsa started 35 / 38 games (some at RB I know)
Diego Carlos started 20 / 38 games
Lenglet started 14 / 38 games
Mings started 1, as did Callum Chambers
At LB, Lucas Digne started 27 / 38 and Moreno started 11 / 38.
So Villa effectively used four players at CB and two at LB.
Now for the car-crash that is United...
Martinez started 8 / 38 games
Varane started 16 / 38 games
Maguire started 18 / 38 games
Lindelof started 14 / 38 games
Kambwala started 3 / 38 games
37 year old Johnny Evans, signed on a free from relegated Leicester started 15 / 38 games.
Casemiro started 5 / 38 games at CB.
Luke Shaw, our first choice LB and arguably 5th choice CB started 12 / 38 games.
Malacia, our 2nd choice LB, started 0 games...in fact, didn't play a single minute.
It's been widely publicised that United have used 14 different CB combinations...if we wanted to take an even deeper dive, we could look at how many times we had to change our CB partnership in-game.
Martinez was subbed off 6 times from those 8 starts.
Varane was subbed off 4 times from those 16 starts.
Evans was subbed off 7 times from those 15 starts.
Lindelof was subbed off 7 times from those 14 starts.
At LB, Shaw was subbed off 5 times from 12 starts and, as we know, Malacia didn't play at all.
Again, I repeat...much of this is our own fault and this is not a defence of EtH, who I have advocated sacking since Palace at home...but it is impossible, physically impossible for a team to have a "good" season when you're fielding a different CB combination every single week, and that CB combination is having to change again almost every week in-game!
For what it is worth...Saliba started 38 / 38 for Arsenal and Gabriel 36 /38
I am not for one second saying United aren't miles behind Arsenal...but I'd be willing to bet that if you gave them, with their squad, our defensive injuries this season, they'd do equally as poorly.
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Evans is 36. Not 37.
The issue with injuries is that it was to key players, ie regular first 11 players and then the next 4/5 that would regularly rotate with them to keep them fresh. Thus even when players came in they were generally going to find it hard to maintain the style of play the manager would want.
If we can keep a core of say 18 players reasonably fit for a majority of next season then we will see a massive difference in performance and playing style regardless of who the manager ends up being.
If we can keep a core of say 18 players reasonably fit for a majority of next season then we will see a massive difference in performance and playing style regardless of who the manager ends up being.
Added Newcastle, since they are often identified as a team who suffered badly from injuries in 2023/24. Like United, they underperformed significantly compared with 2022/23.
Fabien Schar 36 starts from 38 games
Sven Botman 17 starts from 38 games
Lascelles 16 starts from 38 games
Paul Dummet 5 starts from 38 games
Dan Burn started 33 from 38, presumably mostly at LB.
Keiran Trippier started 28 from 38 at RB.
So again...nothing really like United. Schar was basically an ever-present and Botman and Lascelles started 33 games between them.
LB and RB were basically covered by first-choices Burn and Trippier, with Livramento and Hall (both £30m purchases) acting as natural understudies.
For this to be comparable to United, there would be no 'regular' at CB, there would have to be an extended period in which Schar, Botman, Lascelles, Dummet and Burn were all injured at the same time and none of those players could have started more than 16 games.
Believe me..I'm no EtH defender, but we have been absolutely destroyed by injuries this season.