Iron Men - Players Who Don't Get Injured

Piratesoup

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The best ability is availability.

Thomas Müller is set to miss a match due to suspension for the very first time in his career. It made me think about how Müller seems to always be available. So I looked at his injury history. He's missed 14 games due to injury over the course of his 11 year career, half of them due to a muscle fiber tear in 2017.
That got me thinking: Who are some other players that are/were always available? Who are the Iron Men of football?
 

Pow

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Hazard for us. Iirc hes been injured more in his first season at madrid than he ever was for us in 7 years.
 

Skills

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Lampard always played. Don't remember him being rested much too.

Evra for us.
 

flappyjay

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Cesar azpilicueta missed 29 games in the 10/11 season because of an acl injury. Since then he hasn't missed a match through injury according to transfer market. That's an amazing record.
 

Dancfc

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Early signs are Mount will be that type of player, the one time he did get forced off it looked like he done his ACL but recovered to start the very next game.
 

duffer

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Lampard was rarely injured. In since he broke into the first team at West Ham he made 594* (for West Ham, Chelsea and Man City) in 18 seasons. That's an average of 33 games per season.

*I've started counting appearances from 97/98 when he was a regular in the first team, him not getting picked when he was 17 has nothing to do with injury.

He also holds the record for consecutive games in the prem at 164.

Azpilicueta is out current "Iron Man". He's made 262 prem appearances in 8 years, an average of 32.75 games per season (and unlike Lampard, he has been dropped a few times).

Azpi also played 13,354 out of a possible 13,680 minutes between the 15/16 and 18/19 seasons. That's 2 games missed and subbed off once in 4 years.
 

DWelbz19

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Griezmann is a bit of a cyborg. I think he’s missed one game through injury his entire career! Look at his numbers for Sociedad and Atletico — pretty mental.

Luis Suarez pre-Barcelona was similar.

Patrice Evra averaged 35 PL games a season in his last 5 years here. Played pretty much every game for Monaco too before he signed for us.

Juan Mata is another, actually. He played pretty much every game for Valencia and Chelsea (pre-Mourinho) and since joining us, whilst he hasn’t always played, I can’t remember him really ever being injured.
 

duffer

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Lampard always played. Don't remember him being rested much too.

Evra for us.
Cesar azpilicueta missed 29 games in the 10/11 season because of an acl injury. Since then he hasn't missed a match through injury according to transfer market. That's an amazing record.
I didn't copy you guys honestly! Just took me ages to get the stats together!

Lampard was rarely injured. In since he broke into the first team at West Ham he made 594* (for West Ham, Chelsea and Man City) in 18 seasons. That's an average of 33 games per season.

*I've started counting appearances from 97/98 when he was a regular in the first team, him not getting picked when he was 17 has nothing to do with injury.

He also holds the record for consecutive games in the prem at 164.

Azpilicueta is out current "Iron Man". He's made 262 prem appearances in 8 years, an average of 32.75 games per season (and unlike Lampard, he has been dropped a few times).

Azpi also played 13,354 out of a possible 13,680 minutes between the 15/16 and 18/19 seasons. That's 2 games missed and subbed off once in 4 years.
 

JPRouve

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Henry was durable, he barely got injured.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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Always thought it was one of the best things about Ronaldo, you could always count on him being fit for the big games.
 

fps

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Always thought it was one of the best things about Ronaldo, you could always count on him being fit for the big games.
Yes Ronaldo's injury record is incredible. At a tangent, and not suggesting the latter's quite on that level, when comparing Ronaldo and Rooney I think the impact of a couple of big injuries on Rooney is sometimes underrated in his clear late 20s decline.
 

Schweigaard

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I don't recall Carragher ever being injured. Maybe once or twice.
 

Dancfc

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Always thought it was one of the best things about Ronaldo, you could always count on him being fit for the big games.
Same with Messi aswell, has he actually had an injury since 07/08?
 

Adam-Utd

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Evra considering the workload he had was very impressive. Never rested and had to fly up and down the flank all season.

Probably the reason Fabio never progressed as he just couldn’t get a look in
 

LawCharltonBest

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John Terry rarely missed a match did he?

I can only remember one long layoff Ronaldo has had

I don’t want to jinx it by naming a current United player, but Harry Maguires injury récord up until now is very good
 

kkj25

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Ronaldo has had almost no major time out with injuries that I can remember. Out of curiosity do we think it is just due to luck or other factors? Ronaldo for example is well known for living a very clean lifestyle since very young and having a personal dietitian since his early Utd days. Rooney on the other hand opposite.
 

Scarecrow

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Peter Crouch mentioned on his podcast once that he had a lot of luck with injuries. I checked and he’s missed 6 games for a hamstring once and 1 for the flu. That’s it.
 

paraguayo

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It felt like Ronaldinho never had any structural big injuries
 

MalcolmTucker

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Messi and Ronaldo - part of the reason why I feel like we won't have players like them for a long time is how rare it is to have two supremely athletic talents spend the their (extended) prime years playing 50+ games a season. Very strange considering Messi spent his early years injury prone and eating pizza.

I do feel like Ronaldo has set a precedent on how an athlete should prepare, work hard and look after themselves - players like Mbappe and Rashford seem to have adopted his professionalism.
 

Invictus

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Xavi was pretty darn consistent with regard to availability, too. Tore his ligaments in 2005 and missed several months, but rarely injured since then for close to a decade, apart from slight muscle strains here or there that he quickly recovered from — playing an average of 52 club matches (including deep runs in the Champions League and Copa and Club World Cup) and 12 international matches per season (including 3 major finals) between 2006 and 2013. Pretty remarkable when you consider that he typically averaged something like 11-12 kms per game and was Barcelona/Spain's primary organizer on the pitch (which must have left him mentally exhausted on top of the obvious physical fatigue).

Though to be fair, his workload was decently managed at league level — with frequent breaks as he never exceeded the 3000 minutes-per-season mark in La Liga within that period...
https://fbref.com/en/players/c1b4188c/Xavi
 

Yagami

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Could be wrong but I can't remember Brozovic being injured for Inter, which is impressive as not only does he play every game, I think he covers the most ground out of everyone on the pitch, too.
 

Chipper

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Brad Friedel. It's a lot easier for goalies, but this is still good going:

310 in a row at one point.
 

Bole Top

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yes, Brad Friedel is an obvious example. played every league game for his clubs from 2004 to 2012, when he was benched when Tottenham bought Lloris.

also, Hamsik.

2009-10 - 37 league games
2010-11 - 37 league games
2011-12 - 37 league games
2012-13 - 38 league games
2014-15 - 35 league games
2015-16 - 38 league games
2016-17 - 38 league games
2017-18 - 38 league games

brilliant for a midfielder.
 

TwoSheds

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Wayne Bridge was unbelievable until he went to Chelsea and became a man of toffee. It's a career of two halves.
 

Kasper

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Xavi and Lahm both tore their ACLs early in their career but recovered and almost never were injured afterwards.
Lewandowski recently had something but apart from that he has been incredible this last decade. For a lone striker who throws himself into every challenge and who's hold up play is so important it's crazy how his body is handling the intensity, almost never injured.
 

Lennon7

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Surprised no ones mentioned Giggs. Even in his mid to late 30s he was always available
 

Sky1981

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Ronaldo was and still is a machine, considering how intense he plays

Our 1999 team was pretty robust, seems to recall they played 50+ games in high octane that season
 
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Antisocial

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Evra was incredible for us - given that we could never go two games in a row with the same centre-backs and right-back due to our ridiculous situation with injuries, having Evra there every single game was a damn miracle.
 

fps

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Surprised no ones mentioned Giggs. Even in his mid to late 30s he was always available
Giggs missed game after game in his 20s, notoriously he changed his training regime and stopped sprinting because he kept getting hamstring injuries and missing matches.
 

Lennon7

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Giggs missed game after game in his 20s, notoriously he changed his training regime and stopped sprinting because he kept getting hamstring injuries and missing matches.
He’s never been out for longer than a month, and in his ridiculously long career I reckon he’s not missed more than 6 months in total
 

Peyroteo

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Ronaldo’s had plenty of injuries throughout his career tbf, he just tends to play regardless. In 2014 doctors said he’d be risking his career if he chose to play the World Cup and he did it anyway.

Lewandowski and Griezmann for me, always available and never seem to have any problems.