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Why so many injuries?

Norse

Member
Sep 13, 2009
279
182
How many injuries are down to lack of professional medical analysis, treatment and care?

A few years ago players like Iversen and Anderton were always injured.

Now half the squad has groin injuries.

In an article for the BBC, a more modern approach from Brazil is described. Similar stories have come out of AC Milan.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Spurs have something to learn?
Fitness the key for Brazillian success


I've added a link to the The Physio Room as t
he number of groin injuries has concerned me too. No other Premiership club has more than one - we have four! Geez
 

Matthew Wyatt

Call me Boris
Aug 3, 2007
2,224
1,988
I've wondered that since Sicknote's heyday in the treatment room. Sack and replace all the medical staff at once!
 

not_tenth-again

Well-Known Member
Jun 19, 2009
2,599
2,095
Great article. It does seem funny that when someone needs knee surgery they go to the States and now Woody is down here in Australia for surgery - why are there no recognised specialists in England.

Harry kewell's manager blasted Liverpool a few weeks ago suggesting their poor medical team was the reason he never reached his potential with them... he may have a point, he hasn't missed half as many games in Turkey since his move there.

It's a bit off the wall, but my personal opinion is Spurs must have some sort of training ground/stadium pitch soil inbalance.... not going to go into too much depth but I reckon the training pitch and the stadium pitch are a different soil consistency (one harder than the other), so effectively they build up and condition (slightly) the incorrect proportion of muscles in training for use in game day, this creates uneven loads on their body, which over a season catch up with them... just a thought
 

mil1lion

This is the place to be
May 7, 2004
42,334
77,592
One of the few good things about Juande Ramos was the fitness regime he brought over here. We really need to have a good look at it in the summer. Didn't we have an olympic fitness team at one point, only to lose them to Chelsea (i think)?
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
My guess is that there is nothing in these theories about pitch or soil conditions, or medical staff inadaquacies any more than in the ´curse of Gareth Bale´hoodoo theory.

Take a snapshot now and it will reveal many oddities perhaps showing Spurs in a particular light; take it at six months intervals and it will show something entirely different.

Metatarsals has been the fashionable injury for a couple of seasons, now it's groins. next season it will be shins or big toes.

Interesting article though.

As for groins I blame John Terry.
 

sak11

Well-Known Member
Aug 7, 2005
926
897
Great article. It does seem funny that when someone needs knee surgery they go to the States and now Woody is down here in Australia for surgery - why are there no recognised specialists in England.

Im an orthopaedic surgeon and the reason that they head to north america or australia is that these countries have developed orthopaedic sports surgery as a subspecialty field - there is no such field or subspecialty here as yet. There are plenty of surgeons in this country who have as much experience as those in other countries with regards to the knee/foot/shoulder however they don't work as a specialist sports surgeon, but rather a knee surgeon or shoulder surgeon and hence may be why the players/agents/clubs choose to go elsewhere.
 

Rocksuperstar

Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have?
Jun 6, 2005
53,288
66,756
I've noticed that it seems injuries come in groups - at the Woolwich they might blame other teams being "too rough" on them :)lol:) but the question has to be raised as to why these players are being broken so easily, i don't see other teams suffering from such brittle boned problems from similarly tough tackles, and worse. Is it their equipment? The boots not offering the protection they should? The medical staff not up on their bone studies? Or is it just because they continually field tiny children amongst full grown men? :think:

Concerns me the most that our squad routinely has at least 3 players out with groin injuries - what is it in the N17 area that they're all doing with their groins to generate so many injuries?? Danielle Lloyd is down in Piratesmouth now, so she can't be to blame...

I dunno - i tend to lean towards equipment, especially boots. Foot injuries were rife for a while, boots came under scrutiny for being made of crepe paper, then there was the blades/studs debate, i just think that, in the pursuit of lighter, more accurate boots, the manufacturers have failed to acknowledge the protection they offered the wearer, not only for his feet, but his posture, turning, accelerating and taking knocks it will affect the ankles, knees and hips and back.

I'm no scientist, i could be making this up, but i still suspect the boots...
 

wakefieldyid

SC Supporter
Jun 13, 2006
1,560
1,591
Great article. It does seem funny that when someone needs knee surgery they go to the States and now Woody is down here in Australia for surgery - why are there no recognised specialists in England.

Harry Kewell's manager blasted Liverpool a few weeks ago suggesting their poor medical team was the reason he never reached his potential with them... he may have a point, he hasn't missed half as many games in Turkey since his move there.

Coincidentally, Kewell had also "blasted" his medical treatment at Leeds prior to his move to Liverpool. It seems to be a recurring theme and, if I was on the medical staff at Galatasary, I'd expect him to say the same when he finally moves on.

One point that surprises me is the degree of control that players have over their own fitness and medical treatment.

The fact that Woody's in Oz having treatment will have more to do with his Australian agent, Bernie Mandic (who is also Kewell's agent), than any perceived shortage of approriate surgeons in Europe.

When Steed Malbranque wanted to leave Fulham, he refused to have (groin?) surgery, and negotiated a cup-price transfer to Spurs on the basis that his value to Fulham was negligible whilst he remained unfit.

There was no way that Fulham could oblige him to have the necessary surgery and, sure enough, he signed for Spurs, had the surgery and made his first appearance for us about 10 weeks later.
 

Paxtonite

Active Member
Nov 28, 2004
1,956
32
Definitley in the Iversen days, our medical situation was a joke. Everyone seemed to be injured but its funny how when the team isn't doing so well the injuries pile up!! That's just me being cynical by the way. The 90's squads were strewn with ageing players feeling the strain or young underdeveloped players being pushed too hard. We nearly always had long injury lists.

Recently though things seemed to have improved apart from the regular doubts over King and Woodgate. This season Bale and BAE (for the second time since coming to spurs) have overcome longer term injuries as has Modric, but i am not sure what you can do about those types of injuries.

What worries me more is that as important a player as Lennon is to us, it doesn't appear to me that we ever get a full season out of him.

There's an element of bad luck too i suppose but then that is why it is now a squad game.
 

spurs_viola

Rui Costa,dreamspurs no10
Mar 10, 2005
2,454
0
One of the few good things about Juande Ramos was the fitness regime he brought over here. We really need to have a good look at it in the summer. Didn't we have an olympic fitness team at one point, only to lose them to Chelsea (i think)?

I also mentioned this in the past - the fitness regime (incl training, diet, discipline off the field) of Alvarez and Ramos improved the team in that aspect so much that we did not have anything like current situation with muscle injuries at Spurs. The injuries we had were mainly long-term like King and Hutton. Even Woody stayed largely injury-free for the whole year he had with that regime.

If you look at Sevilla FC, you will see they also had very few such injuries and players generally recovered quickly, so they were able to play very consistent team line-up throughout the season when Alvarez and Ramos were in charge.

I do not think it is any coincidence. To me neither is the "we're down to bare bones" regular situation in Harry's West Ham and Portsmouth days.
 

JoeT

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2005
3,813
935
Too many games imo. I've been saying for weeks on here that HR should nurse his players from fatigue, and hence injuries, by substituting when possible...we should finish every game having used all of our substitutes. (The amount of football Rooney, for example is playing, is a joke.)
Plus, has the team slipped back to their pre-Ramos habits?...those of healthy diets especially.
 

yiddopaul

Well-Known Member
Dec 28, 2005
3,418
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Bunch of wimps todays footballers :wink: Not like the old days where the squads were much smaller, the pitch was more like a rugby field and played at least as many games probably even more, and none of this squad rotation business. I swear, when we read so-and-so is out of sundays game because of a knock, or they have a bad cold – Mackay & co. would miss a game only if their leg were broken or ligament damage. Now it's because they are feeling under the weather, poor dears. AND the medical treatment available then was poor.
 

3Dnata

Well-Known Member
Oct 5, 2008
5,879
1,345
Watching the treatment of Huddlestone's injury was like watching the treatment of Modric against B'ham.
The physio (is it Lewin?) was swinging the leg around again that was very poor seeing that Modric had a fracture and it therefore does not inspire me with confidence.
 

JoeT

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2005
3,813
935
Being a bit of an old fart myself, I would like like to agree with you 'yiddopaul' but I'm not so sure that yesterday's players could have maintained the number of games played today (which I think may be more), at the high pace level of today's game. I think in those days the average player was not nearly as fit - in the sense of the sheer speed and quality required today - more resilient maybe...yes. Was Matthews as fast as Lennon or Bale? I doubt it.
I think that the very pace of today's game, and the fact that the player is required to play at that level over and over (how many easy games are there?) eventually just breaks down their bodies. Players imo, need to be nursed along a little....don't play the wingers and key guys for 90 minutes; try - if possible - to get them off after an hour and have a regular sub ready for that position.
Spurs have been a little guilty of overusing some players...did Lennon have to play 90 mins in so many games? Are we overusing Bale a little too much right now?
I know it's a cliche, but the Prem. season is a marathon race....a bloody tough one.
 

GDG

Old China Hand
Staff
Aug 25, 2004
23,903
27
Any number of hypotheses but my twopennyworth is that the game is miles faster now than it used to be, and miles fas.ter for the whole match. The players are training and playing at far greater speed than they used to, they go in to contact at greater speed and twist/turn and change direction at greater speed - the net result is more injuries in and out of contact.

The same thing is happening with rugby, to an even greater extent as it it a much more physical game. The shelf life of a top international rugby player is getting shorter and shorter, and the demands of year round play mean that they get almost no down time, again leading to breakdown of tissues and injury.

Spurs seem to be unlucky in that we have clusters of players getting injured in the same position, currently central midfielders. I don't think we are a particularly injury-prone team, cast your mind back to ManU earlier this season if you want to see a squad decimated by injury, they had almost no defenders at one point - it's all a matter of perception and that perception is most acute when you're looking at your own team.
 

Norse

Member
Sep 13, 2009
279
182
Gomez too was struggling with a groin injury today. Don't they warm up and stretch at Spurs? They're not exactly flexible like gymnast or yoga practioners...
 
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