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Manchester United’s season has been characterised by many things and, unfortunately, pretty much all of them are negative.
Last night’s inept way to lose a football match against Chelsea in the 100th and 111th minute of play was sufficient evidence of that. However, the season has also shown the sheer scale of the problems that lie behind the scenes with the medical team as United have suffered injury after injury, especially in the defensive department.
Since last Saturday’s game against Brentford, the Red Devils have lost Victor Lindelof, Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane twice and Jonny Evans to medical issues. As a result, The Telegraph has launched an investigation into the reasons behind United’s injury woes.
Before last night’s game against Chelsea, United had suffered 30 separate injuries with only Newcastle at 32 suffering more. If we take Evans and Varane has two extra cases, then they have drawn level since.
“On average, United have suffered 8.5 injuries every 1,000 minutes in all competitions this season and have lost a total of 1,136 days to injury up to the latest international break”.
Concerns have been raised by the medical team and Erik ten Hag criticised their role in the decimation of the defensive department back in March.
Moreover, whilst on international duty the Brazilian doctors noticed an injury that Casemiro was carrying that the United medical team had seemingly missed.
There have also been serious accusations against the medical department that they are rushing players back and butchering the recoveries of numerous players, Lisandro Martinez being the most clear case which The Peoples Person has already analysed.
This has led to an internal investigation which began in October after Gary O’Driscoll became head of sports medicine at the club after 14 years at Arsenal. The review resulted in Robin Sadler, United’s long-standing head physiotherapist, leaving in January and the investigation has said to have thrown up some answers to the problem.
However, the English paper has put forward some more reasons behind the horrendous injury problems.
“Some United players have harboured concerns about the volume of high-intensity training sessions between matches and privately expressed fears the approach may have contributed to the team’s injury issues this season”.
Christian Eriksen has already spoken out on the amount of travelling the team did during pre-season with trips to Scotland, Norway, Ireland and all across the United States of America.
However Ten Hag has snapped back at this allegation stating, “we need to be fit [but] we don’t train too hard. We don’t train because we recover then you go to the next game”.
Another reason suggested for the injury crisis is a congested calendar. However this season isn’t a particularly good example of this. With early exits from the Champions League and Carabao Cup, “United have played just 13 fixtures over 91 days in 2024 – eight fewer matches than during the corresponding period last year when they endured a marathon 62-game season”.
The Dutchman still believes that his side are suffering the ramifications of the sheer amount of work they went through last season, plus with the unique challenge of a World Cup in the middle of the season.
Elaborating further on the issue he claimed, “the players get overloaded and can’t bring the performances anymore. We are already over the point where we demand what we want from our top players. The levels for teams will keep dripping if you keep going in this process by overloading the international competitions”.
The Telegraph also state that the problem also lies with the durability of certain United players. There are extremes of players like Andre Onana and Bruno Fernandes who are always available but they are a rarity in this team.
“United’s squad is littered with players unable to cope with the demands of top-level football every few days. Recruiting players with the physical and mental attributes to deal with such a workload will be a pressing issue for INEOS”.
The manager has once again spoken in the past on the need for “robust” players.
“I think we have more players who are very robust like Bruno is but, yes, that is the type of player you need. When you go into Christmas with many injuries and then you have to bring them back … they are free from injury but they are not match fit. They are not straight back into the form, that also needs a couple of games before you get back into the rhythm, [so] it still has an impact”.
The final cause analysed by the outlet is that of a busy international calendar. Ten Hag stated, “We have national teams five times a year. You give players away and you don’t have any impact [on them]. OK, some national teams we have a very good connection [with] and we manage the programmes but there are also others that do what they want. You don’t have anything in hand on what they are doing there”.
However, all top teams suffer these rigorous circumstances and whilst excessive injury lists have been a common theme for all teams in this campaign, there is clearly a multitude of factors wrong at Old Trafford.
Journalist David Ornstein commented on the Telegraph’s article and claimed, “it says that Manchester United don’t have a head of fitness at the club, which strikes me as being a bit concerning, and that INEOS may well be looking to bring in a performance director. I think that is one of many areas that Manchester United need, and probably will, look to address with a matter of urgency because it’s just not good enough and it’s really inhibited Ten Hag”.
One feels that INEOS can sign whoever they want but if they don’t get to the root of the culture of injury at the club, they really will never achieve anything like the lofty ambitions they hold for the side from the Theatre of Dreams.
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