How bad have our injuries really been this season?

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.

I think the vast majority of our fans would agree that our best five CBs are, in no particular order...

Martinez, Varane, Maguire, Shaw, Lindelof

We then also have Evans (who has done admirably but shouldn't be starting in the PL at 36), Casemiro (who isn't a CB) and Kambwala (who isn't ready)

So you could argue "9th choice" is a stretch but there's definitely been two or even three periods this season that we've seen combinations of Evans / Kambwala or Casemiro / Evans.

We've also seen one of the "5" playing injured beside Evans, Kambwala or Casemiro.

I keep coming back to the point but which other Premier League club, bar Club 115, could sustain that many injuries and finish top 6? I personally don't think ANY club could.
 
I think the vast majority of our fans would agree that our best five CBs are, in no particular order...

Martinez, Varane, Maguire, Shaw, Lindelof

We then also have Evans (who has done admirably but shouldn't be starting in the PL at 36), Casemiro (who isn't a CB) and Kambwala (who isn't ready)

So you could argue "9th choice" is a stretch but there's definitely been two or even three periods this season that we've seen combinations of Evans / Kambwala or Casemiro / Evans.

We've also seen one of the "5" playing injured beside Evans, Kambwala or Casemiro.

I keep coming back to the point but which other Premier League club, bar Club 115, could sustain that many injuries and finish top 6? I personally don't think ANY club could.
While I do agree that Evans would have started the season perhaps at 6th choice, he ended up doing well enough that he moved ahead of Lindelof and Shaw (if he were fit we'd have played Shaw on the left with Evans in the middle rather than Shaw in the middle). In the same way that Maguire moved back up to #3 (#2 for a while during that period that he was ahead of Varane).

So I consider Martinez, Varane, Maguire, Evans and Lindelof as our main five, and we had two of them fit at the same time for most of the season. Admittedly sometimes we probably rushed one of them back a bit early to do so. It's only the last five or six weeks that we ended up having to play only one of them with either Kambwala (7th choice) or Casemiro (8th choice).

Of course that's not disagreeing that our entire season was obviously impacted quite a lot by those constant injuries to the defence. I just don't think it's quite the defining feature of this season or the single biggest reason for the struggles. Even when we've had our strongest, or close to the strongest, defence out there we generally looked poor.
 
While I do agree that Evans would have started the season perhaps at 6th choice, he ended up doing well enough that he moved ahead of Lindelof and Shaw (if he were fit we'd have played Shaw on the left with Evans in the middle rather than Shaw in the middle). In the same way that Maguire moved back up to #3 (#2 for a while during that period that he was ahead of Varane).

So I consider Martinez, Varane, Maguire, Evans and Lindelof as our main five, and we had two of them fit at the same time for most of the season. Admittedly sometimes we probably rushed one of them back a bit early to do so. It's only the last five or six weeks that we ended up having to play only one of them with either Kambwala (7th choice) or Casemiro (8th choice).

Of course that's not disagreeing that our entire season was obviously impacted quite a lot by those constant injuries to the defence. I just don't think it's quite the defining feature of this season or the single biggest reason for the struggles. Even when we've had our strongest, or close to the strongest, defence out there we generally looked poor.

Well it will come down to personal interpretation but for me, Lindelof (who is the Swedish national team captain) is a better player now than Evans at 36.

I imagine when we signed Evans, we expected him to play one or two games max., but instead he's ended up being our most-featured CB!
 
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
Thanks for pulling that together, I think, that makes a strong case for how bad our injuries were. Injuries still shouldn't be used as some sort of carte blanche for ETH, some of his decisions along the way were a bit weird, but I think, some are underrating the impact of those injuries to make a point against him. I'd chip in with another factor: given that we planned to change our style of play this season, the permanent ongoing injuries really did us dirty in terms of getting used to the new style of play. Such thing is always difficult and takes time but with everchanging personel, things become even more difficult. Again, ETH may or may not have reverted back to last seasons template at some point, I guess he gambled and kind of lost so I, once again, don't want to absolve him of anything here but the injuries we had over the season would have impacted every team in the league. I'd argue even City, even though Pep may have a found a way around 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.


Are there any public sources or articles that discuss whether ETH's training has been the main reason for the injuries?

It seems reasonable to me. ETH has failed in every aspect of football management, so it won't be a surprise if his training is also shit. And ETH seems stubborn and inflexible, so the "one size fits all" sounds like him.
 
For those who blame injuries, let me remind you that our first convincing performance was in late late November. We were gobshite before that and after that. Our results typically flattered us. All this is true since the league Cup win in Feb 2023.
 
They have been awful, however if we had someone with the same profiles of Licha & Varane we wouldn't have missed them so much
 
What winds me up about the whole injury debate this season, are the supporters and media that dismiss it like it shouldn't matter. This is absolute nonsense.

First up, we've been absolutely decimated with injuries across the entire team and not just one or two, but sometimes entire defences, midfield or strikers. In those moments, options have been very limited. But more importantly, entire team tactics and setups go out the window.

There have been fans who counter with 'but that shouldn't matter, we have other players, it's no excuse' like the other players coming in are all world class, they aren't. This isn't an argument at all.

Look at any other team or even sport. Take City for example, injure Rodri, Haarland, Stones and Foden, all at the same time and then tell me they'd be as good. Or Arsenal, take Rice, Odeguaard, Havertz and Saka out the team and tell me they'd be as good. Just because you can 'fill' the space doesn't mean you're filling it with the same quality of player.

Brailsford knows this because he's gone into the Tour de France with top teams as favourites only to lose riders like Froome or Thomas a week before and its changed the whole dynamic.

Our injuries killed us this season, to think any different would be madness.
 
There's something going on with this club in regards to injuries, this cannot just be another coincidence. Something is seriously wrong.
 
Praying Rasmus isn't the Kobbie injury of last season, also hopefully Leny might be back for the Fulham game, City in Community Shield might come too soon if it's an ankle problem
 
An Arsenal fan told me that injuries kept piling in during O'Driscoll's time and they were glad that they got rid off him. Whether that's true or not I wouldn't know for certain. Maybe there are Arsenal fans here who can confirm.
 
An Arsenal fan told me that injuries kept piling in during O'Driscoll's time and they were glad that they got rid off him. Whether that's true or not I wouldn't know for certain. Maybe there are Arsenal fans here who can confirm.

Oh my god please sack him if this is true
 
Huh? When did Amad get injured? He had a knock in the game but continued fine after that.

That's what howson said. I haven't watched the game. It was at 2am and my 5 yr old daughter doesn't sleep if I'm not around
 
When I woke up and realised United played in the night, my first thought was who got injured rather than the score line

I don’t know who is to blame but they seem to have picked up hugely since ETH came
 
Yoro follow the tradition of Man Utd CBs where all of them suddenly become injury prone once they join the club.
 
When I woke up and realised United played in the night, my first thought was who got injured rather than the score line

I don’t know who is to blame but they seem to have picked up hugely since ETH came

You'd think if it was due to Ten Hag's or the training methods there would be more discontent among the squad, but he doesn't appear to have lost the dressing room. It's always difficult to gauge from the outside, but the players seem to support him.
 
Just don’t get how Rasmus played all games for Denmark in the euros then comes back to us and gets injured. This has to be the training methods…there’s no other excuse
 
They knew Yoro and Hojlund had injuries before the game, so why they risked them we'll never know.

There's no point having a new medical dept if your going to start injured players.

Probably made it worse now too.
 
When I woke up and realised United played in the night, my first thought was who got injured rather than the score line

I don’t know who is to blame but they seem to have picked up hugely since ETH came

Everyone keeps saying, "the injuries cannot be as bad next season", which is somewhat naive I think. Yes, there is some bad luck in getting an injury, but the number of injuries you encounter as a club in a season will also be a product of how injury prone your players are, the intensity of the match schedule, the training methods employed by your coaches and the tactics employed by your manager. We have kept the manager and cannot replace the entire squad, so all of these factors will remain in play next season. I think a repeat of last season's injury crisis is highly likely.
 
Everyone keeps saying, "the injuries cannot be as bad next season", which is somewhat naive I think. Yes, there is some bad luck in getting an injury, but the number of injuries you encounter as a club in a season will also be a product of how injury prone your players are, the intensity of the match schedule, the training methods employed by your coaches and the tactics employed by your manager. We have kept the manager and cannot replace the entire squad, so all of these factors will remain in play next season. I think a repeat of last season's injury crisis is highly likely.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all. There is a glitch in the system somewhere. I heard last night before the match that Yoro hadn’t trained and looked iffy. Why risk him in a friendly?

We keep getting linked to players with poor injury records too which I find confusing. I’d assume “good injury record” would be one of our necessities for targets after last season
 
Everyone keeps saying, "the injuries cannot be as bad next season", which is somewhat naive I think. Yes, there is some bad luck in getting an injury, but the number of injuries you encounter as a club in a season will also be a product of how injury prone your players are, the intensity of the match schedule, the training methods employed by your coaches and the tactics employed by your manager. We have kept the manager and cannot replace the entire squad, so all of these factors will remain in play next season. I think a repeat of last season's injury crisis is highly likely.

People think it would be solved by "replacing a physio", but we all saw our suicide football last season and yeah, as you said, the manager who rushes back players from injury and plays this suicide football is still there.
 
Just don’t get how Rasmus played all games for Denmark in the euros then comes back to us and gets injured. This has to be the training methods…there’s no other excuse
Pre-season training and tournament training are obviously different things with the former being way now focused on fitness and physical training. Maybe we have overdone it with Højlund, maybe it's rotten luck. At least we have another striker in Zirkzee this season.
 
They knew Yoro and Hojlund had injuries before the game, so why they risked them we'll never know.

There's no point having a new medical dept if your going to start injured players.

Probably made it worse now too.
Is that right? Unbelievable if it is.

Anyways, EtH and his defenders can start getting in their excuses for why this season will be so disappointing even earlier this year, technically before its even started.