Injury League Table Statistics

Hello all. First post for a long time.

Someone wrote recently that our injury stats were much worse last season than purported....so I decided to research further.

I combined the number of days lost to injury of first team squad players amongst all clubs present in the Premier League in the past two completed seasons (as supplied by physioroom.com): it makes interesting reading - if you're a stats-dweeb like me:

1. Tottenham 2936
2. Arsenal 2821
3. Man U 2749
4. NUFC 2597
5. Fulham 2416
6. Sunderland 2390
7. Liverpool 1729
8. Aston Villa 1670
9. Everton 1668
10. WBA 1451
11.Stoke 1253
12. Chelsea 1043
13. Man C 1012
14. Wigan 961

The remarkable thing is that the two seasons had very similar injury league tables - and this appears to be continuing into the current season. So is this because the 6 most injury-prone clubs are unlucky, have incompetent physios, sign brittle players, are not trained enough for physical stamina or the other teams are hackers?

Bearing in mind the richest clubs tend to have larger squads, it's remarkable that Wigan have lost the fewest days to injury while we - among the smallest squads - have lost among the most. What seems clear is that if Manchester United resolved their injury issues there would be an even bigger gulf between them and injury-free Chelsea and Man City. Spurs would surely have qualified for the Champions League by now. And Wigan would have been relegated long ago.

 

May just be the manager of wigan? wait where does he come from

 

Welcome back mate and a good post.
It's interesting that only 3 out of the top 10 are southern teams too. Could it be the colder Northern temperatures?
Maybe it's a mixture of all factors.

 

I replied to a thread about injuries. It was being said we had a good season last year compared to this but I could definitely recall seeing an article on how bad we were , so thanks for giving the stats to back me up.
It does concern me as to why season after season there are so many injuries. "slipper style boots ", not enough physical training, insufficient recovery times due to club pressures etc.,

 

The problem is these stats are very skewed by the days lost stats. Long term injuries completely scupper the whole thing.

The other key aspect of it is, who is injured? i.e. regular first teamers, captain, were they all out at the same time etc.

It's a complicated matter all in all. I don't mind stats but they never tell you the full story about anything. There are countless examples. Shot count in a game for example. Where were the shots from? Possession stats. Where was the possession?

The best bet is always to judge by what you see. Last season we barely changed the team in the first 11 games. Also towards the back end we had pretty consistent selection. Through the winter months we had a lot of people out, and in particular a lot of longer term injuries to centre backs. This season has been much much worse. We've consistently had regular first teamers out, and in particular a big part of our spine at the same time.

 

Raylor has been off for almost the whole season this year. This increases our absentee rate very significantly but he would, if healthy, have played only a very Perch like role. Counting days isn't reliable.

Last season we were able to field a settled team of first or close to first choice players for most of the season. This year, I'm not sure that's happened at all. The stas for the two seasons are virtually identical. Stats mislead

 

Raylor will be like a new player. Hope Pards get's him over the line.