Accusations from Rooney?
How bad have our injuries really been this season?
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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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
That's ridiculous!
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.
Wasn't Varane on the bench for a month in the winter? Probably would've got injured earlier but ultimately he was available, just not used and ETH went with Johnny Evans instead.
Everyone knows his brittleness but your best defensive performances of the season have come with Varane starting so would assume he'll be in tomorrow given it's his last game.
Newcastle had their central midfield decimated in the winter instead. Joelinton, Willock and Elliot Anderson were out for months in that period and of course Tonali got banned so they basically had to go with their last three remaining CMs for ten games consecutively, one of which was 17 year old Lewis Miley.
I would say back to front Newcastle had the most when you think Harvey Barnes was out from October right up to April and Wilson also missed long spells of the season.
They didn't have the most, United did - that's not a debate, that's a fact. My point is that it's even worse than it appears because most of our injuries were to key players and they tended to compound in the three key positions, CB, CM and CF.
For the record, Bruno G. started 37 games for Newcastle and Longstaff started 35 games so they had plenty of stability in CM. Joelinton also managed 20 starts, so yeah...sure they might have been impacted but again, it's nothing like what United experienced at CB.
In fact, in CM, Mount only started 14 games, Mainoo 24, after being injured by Casemiro in pre-season, Casemiro has started 25, but at least 5 of those have been as an emergency CB and Eriksen started 22 games. Virtually every single player in our squad has missed 10-15 games minimum this season, bar Dalot and Onana.
Again, I'm not offering this as an excuse necessarily, because it's a constant problem for United and is related to our poor recruitment and EtHs poor squad management. I am saying though that it's probably the difference between a decent season (4th) and the car-crash of a season it became.
He was seemingly dropped when apparently available for 4 or 5 games I believe...but then we don't know the full story there.
Certainly later in the season he went back to being considered a starter, if available.
There will be some nuances to this for sure, but for the most part we haven't chosen our defence this season, its been made up of which four where available.
While we've obviously had a lot of injuries in defence, that's exaggerating things. We've generally had at least two of our main five central defenders fit, it's just that which two they are has constantly been rotating as one gets fit and another gets injured.
It's only been for the last month or two of the season that Kambwala and then Casemiro had to be slotted in, and even then it's been one of them next to one of our main five.