United Centre Backs and Fitness

diarm

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For what seems like forever, United haven't been able to keep centre backs fit at the club for any length of time. It's pushing a decade since we had a proper partnership at the back and any time we do look like having a settled unit, injury rears its ugly head again.

While clubs like Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool seem able to get through entire seasons using only 2 or 3 centre backs, we have at times played midfielders at the back while having 5, 6 or even 7 guys out injured.

These are the senior injury stats since the turn of the decade:

Rio - 2 injuries, 14 games missed over 2 seasons (avg. 7 games per season)
Vidic - 3 injuries, 44 games missed over 3 seasons (avg. 15 games per season)
Evans - 8 injuries, 46 games missed over 5 seasons (avg. 9 games per season)
Smalling - 9 injuries, 58 games missed over 8 seasons (avg. 7 games per season)
Jones - 19 injuries, 123 games missed over 7 seasons (avg. 18 games per season)
Blind - 3 injuries, 28 games missed over 4 seasons (avg. 7 games per season)
Rojo - 11 injuries, 93 games missed over 5 seasons (avg. 19 games per season)
Bailly - 3 injuries, 34 games missed over 3 seasons (avg. 11 games per season)
Lindelof - None.

Lindelof aside, those are a joke and it can't all be bad luck. Either we have been negligent in our medical assessments when signing players or we are doing something very wrong in training and preparing our defenders.

49 senior centre back games missed per season over the last 9 seasons. Every premier league winning side ever has had a quality, effective and settled centre back pairing so how can we ever expect to be successful with those numbers?

Rojo, Jones and Bailly are simply not reliable enough to be at the club. We need to cut our losses on them and replace them with players we can bank on having available.
 
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MUFC OK

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You just know Jones is playing 40 matches this season and that to me is a recipe for potential embarassment
 

The Cat

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It could in theory be training.

Was it Liverpool under Souness that seemed to get way too many hamstring injuries at one time because of their training methods?
 

poleglass red

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It's easy to say get rid of Jones and Rojo, but haven't they both recently signed new contracts, so there'd have to be a transfer fee plus they'd be on good wages. No top team would be interested in either anyway but even mid to lower teams would be put of for that reason alone. So easier said than done in wanting rid of either
 

vangagal

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poleglass red said:
It's easy to say get rid of Jones and Rojo, but haven't they both recently signed new contracts, so there'd have to be a transfer fee plus they'd be on good wages. No top team would be interested in either anyway but even mid to lower teams would be put of for that reason alone. So easier said than done in wanting rid of either
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Well, we can let Jones go on free this season btw so its our own fault if he injury again and again with no avail.
 

Snuffkin

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We've never been able to rely on Jones, Rojo, and Bailly.
They need to be let go.
 

Alemar

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poleglass red said:
It's easy to say get rid of Jones and Rojo, but haven't they both recently signed new contracts, so there'd have to be a transfer fee plus they'd be on good wages. No top team would be interested in either anyway but even mid to lower teams would be put of for that reason alone. So easier said than done in wanting rid of either
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But the likes of Mings are going at a 26m rate now. If anything, our CBs are better than Mings (injury prone yes). I am sure Jones or Bailly could command 20-25m fee, Rojo perhaps 15m - still better than nothing.
 

Nick7

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Bailly should go first in my opinion. He's a bad defender and has barely been fit and ready in the last two years.
 

diarm

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We should be paying people to take them away from us. In Jones case we would make up the difference in saved medical supplies within 3 weeks.

Any club who spent money on Jones, Rojo or Bailly looking at the above figures would want sectioning.
 

Offside

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It goes way back to when we had Heinze and Brown at centre half against AC Milan one year. De Laet and Carrick away at Fulham one year. We've always had problems.
 

Web of Bissaka

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It's like a curse. :lol:

List of Curses:
  • Haunted #7 shirt
  • Voodoo CB dolls
  • FA Cup of Night terrors (we broke it once with LVG's Nightmare football so I guess that's the key, counter with like and like.)
 

Havak

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I know Smalling's injury record isn't exactly amazing, but people constantly compare him to the likes of Jones as another sicknote when it is so far from the truth. Compared to Jones, Rojo, and Bailly (when you factor in his average is over three seasons with us and just got injured yet again), he's a fit and reliable player. Not the only reason it baffles me when some people still believe Smalling should be the first CB out of the door. This is so wrong, other than Lindelof and maybe Tuanzebe while he's young, Smalling is the last CB we should be actively trying to sell. Rojo, Bailly, and Jones are not only worse players, but are seriously more injury prone which is even worse than being average at football.

What really grinds my gears is that Phil Jones managed to go from a £50k a week contract to a £120k a week contract, through being injured statistically almost half a season per season in Premier League game terms. How did his agent manage to negotiate this deal for him? It'd be like me turning up for work, demanding over double my salary but say I'll only turn up half the time. Absolute madness.
 

AshRK

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The real joke is us keep on offering these players contract extension. Jones and Rojo are lost cause and soon Baily will join that list. We should just cut our losses and get in quality. Right now we just have bodies who are there but are pretty much useless.
 

Foxbatt

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One of the longest injuries of Jones lately was because Smalling kicked him in an England training camp.
 

MUFC OK

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Foxbatt said:
One of the longest injuries of Jones lately was because Smalling kicked him in an England training camp.
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I just want him gone. I know he isnt our biggest problem and selling him won't solve it all but I just cant bear the anxiety of seeing his name on the team sheet against semi decent opposition.

Both games against wolves last season still give me nightmares. 7 years of him is enough to know he will never been good enough.
 

Web of Bissaka

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I think it's heavily dependent on the CBs individually.

Fitness Freak
Rio and Vidic used to be a fitness freak. They can play every single game in a season when their body condition are in their prime. Vidic's body getting worse quickly make sense because of how he play. Rio lasted a loonger time than that. Unfortunately Rio had his back problems later on. Other players we had here are unfortunately not CBs eg. Pogba, Rashford, Mata and De Gea. Almost never get injured, in prime body condition since players get old.

Normal injury-related
I think Evans and Blind are a normal CBs with normal injury rate. I bet Tuanzebe is in this category. It's normal for players to get injuries. Fitness freak is rare. Lindelof is also in this category, but his playstyle helps him a lot to get less injuries thus lower injury rate. Once he added aggression and more physical challenges, this will be more obvious.

Quick Returners
Smalling though is more of a case quickly back from injury. He tend to do that which explains why his rate lower, eventhough he gets injured more often and likely won't last the game when injured during. I believe Vidic in in this category when his body no longer in prime condition.

Injury prones
Bailly, Jones and Rojo I believe does have initial poor injury record at their previous clubs. Basically already are injury prone players. Well maybe not in the case of Jones, since we got him at young age, not enough data. However, ever since Jones come here, he quickly gets injured often even during his first season with us, sign of more to come there.


Not specific to the 2010s
Now then, it's not specific to only now, even before that we had CBs injury crisis or even worse the whole defense having problems. Carrick even had to play CBs, and if I recall correctly even Gary Neville and Roy Keane had to play at CB at some point. Even Ruud was it? We also had to move Heinze from LB to CB and Richarson playing LB at that. O'Shea to CB is also common. Fletcher to RB with the other players to CB also happened. So not just CB, even RB and LB can be problematic. We had many injury prone players. GNev's body condition also get worse later on.

Why did our Defense Injury Crisis settle down at that time?
= Emergence of Vidic and Evra, the biggest reason, two fitness freaks who joined Rio. That's 3 settle position for 4 positions. Later on, Pique's fitness is also good at that short time. Brown eventually get over his injury problem for one, two or three seasons. Silvestre and Heinze were normal so that also helps. Heinze does get more injuries due to how he play. O'Shea is also a fitness freak. Our defense department then is fine. Buttner is also normal later on. Evans is normal.

Rafael and Fabio are injury prones, so it's a problem in Fergie's later seasons when a big chunk of the above players left.


Comparison with Oppo
Check the oppo better, I'm sure Spurs need Dier to cover their Cb when Alderweireld and their other CBs injured. Iirc Liverpool also had problems with their CBs in matters of injuries past seasons, not too far. The comparison will be better if OP give the CB injuries stats of Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool. Not just United.

Grass is greener at the other side?


TLDR/ depends on the players we got. If we clear out those injury prone players and get more normal or the rare fitness freak CBs, then we'll have better CB department, to get better and more consistent CB partnership, which always help.
 

11101

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It has to be something to do with our training. It has been going on for too long to just be a fluke and it's always worse than our peers. The first order of business should be to get rid of the regulars, Jones, Bailly and Rojo. Whatever it is with them is more than just training, and giving Jones a new contract is the worst decision we've made since we let Ferguson choose his own successor.
 

noodlehair

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These stats are easily explained when you remember that Phil Jones is just as talented at accidentally injuring other players as he is at injuring himself.
 

ricky-romeo

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Rifer said:
Not specific to the 2010s
Now then, it's not specific to only now, even before that we had CBs injury crisis or even worse the whole defense having problems. Carrick even had to play CBs, and if I recall correctly even Gary Neville and Roy Keane had to play at CB at some point. Even Ruud was it? We also had to move Heinze from LB to CB and Richarson playing LB at that. O'Shea to CB is also common. Fletcher to RB with the other players to CB also happened. So not just CB, even RB and LB can be problematic. We had many injury prone players. GNev's body condition also get worse later on.

Why did our Defense Injury Crisis settle down at that time?
= Emergence of Vidic and Evra, the biggest reason, two fitness freaks who joined Rio. That's 3 settle position for 4 positions. Later on, Pique's fitness is also good at that short time. Brown eventually get over his injury problem for one, two or three seasons. Silvestre and Heinze were normal so that also helps. Heinze does get more injuries due to how he play. O'Shea is also a fitness freak. Our defense department then is fine. Buttner is also normal later on. Evans is normal.

Rafael and Fabio are injury prones, so it's a problem in Fergie's later seasons when a big chunk of the above players left.
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can you imagine asking Ruud Van Nistelrooy to play at CB? this is a guy who would be furious not to score even if we won a game 5-0. :lol::lol::lol:

Berba had a game at CB, in a league cup game i believe.
 
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diarm

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Rifer said:
The comparison will be better if OP give the CB injuries stats of Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool. Not just United.
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You are quite right but OP is lazy and wished he hadn't started out on the stats he did do about 5 minutes into doing so.
 
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