Topic: Injury (and absence) related chat (so the news is kept in the other thread)

[killer-heels]

Any article that doesn’t mention how Zone7 AI is now driving our decisions, for good or ill, in regards to player health is just garbage. The club has consistently searched for edges and they think they have one with that. Only time will tell.

Zone 7 Al? Is that an offshoot of Al666?

[Fromola]

A lot of talk about the effects of a short or disjointed pre-season. What about the typical summer though when half the squad come back from the Euros/World Cup or Copa America a couple of weeks before the season starts, after maybe getting 2 or 3 weeks off.

In 2021 for example the Euros final was 11th July and the Copa America final the day before.

[Fruity]

Interesting article. I am sure a lot of it is true but Klopp's methods to get the best out of players clearly works. People may not agree with all his methods but I am sure that would be said about anyone who is successful whether in football or business. He has turned a lot of players into the best in their position or one of the best.

The key thing for me in all this is rotation. Being able to rotate players gives us a better chance of keeping everyone fit longer. But to be able to rotate effectively you need players as good as the first team (or nearly as good) on the bench. Diaz coming in January made a huge difference to our front 3 and for me made a huge difference to our season. We could take Mane off at 60 minutes or Firmino and we wouldn't be affecting the quaility of our attack. We can't currently do that in Midfield or with Trent.
So those players are forced into playing a lot of minutes.

[Fromola]

Interesting article. I am sure a lot of it is true but Klopp's methods to get the best out of players clearly works. People may not agree with all his methods but I am sure that would be said about anyone who is successful whether in football or business. He has turned a lot of players into the best in their position or one of the best.

The key thing for me in all this is rotation. Being able to rotate players gives us a better chance of keeping everyone fit longer. But to be able to rotate effectively you need players as good as the first team (or nearly as good) on the bench. Diaz coming in January made a huge difference to our front 3 and for me made a huge difference to our season. We could take Mane off at 60 minutes or Firmino and we wouldn't be affecting the quaility of our attack. We can't currently do that in Midfield or with Trent.
So those players are forced into playing a lot of minutes.

Which also relies on either heavy investment or getting every transfer right, neither of which are going to happen (i.e. Keita). Therefore we gamble on making do and not getting injuries (i.e. centre backs 20/21 and now midfield).

[Zimagic]

I think the article also highlights how much of a step up physically it is to be able to even get into the rotation for a first team slot at the club. With  possibly certain position exceptions (GK, CB, DM), you have to be a physical and skill outlier to be even targetted by the club. Once you get in, you're looking at an additional 20-30km / week than at your previous club just to get to the level of the current players and *then* you need to show up in your contribution to nail down a spot for yourself.

[Dave McCoy]

Zone 7 Al? Is that an offshoot of Al666?

Hah, yeah the club purchased the code for the chat bot that was corrupted into a Nazi by its users and repurposed it for anti-FSG slander. Should fit right in!

In all seriousness it supposedly is driving our decisions on when to rotate or not - https://zone7.ai/

[Schmidt]

Have any of our players developed injury issues that didn't exist pre-Klopp? Keita is the only one I can think of that was fairly robust, the rest all had a history before his arrival. When you look at how often the likes of Robertson, Salah and Trent play without getting injured, along with how frequently our substitutions seem to clearly be driven by fitness rather than tactical changes, it seems we're doing something right.

Our biggest problem for Klopp's entire time at the club has been a lack of investment in the squad.

[Too early for flapjacks?]

So are we expecting Robertson, Konate, and Henderson, back immediately after the international break or very soon after? Going by previous comments Kelleher and Ramsay should be available very soon too? Keita and Ox back later in October from muscle injuries? And that just leaves Jones who is probably a bit more unpredictable due to the stress fracture in his bone.

[keyop]

So are we expecting Robertson, Konate, and Henderson, back immediately after the international break or very soon after? Going by previous comments Kelleher and Ramsay should be available very soon too? Keita and Ox back later in October from muscle injuries? And that just leaves Jones who is probably a bit more unpredictable due to the stress fracture in his bone.

All 3 due back around 1st October according to the Premier Injuries site, with Keita and Ox back a couple of weeks later (although those two are always a bit of a lottery on injury recovery timescales).

https://www.premierinjuries.com/injury-table.php

[Eeyore]

Hah, yeah the club purchased the code for the chat bot that was corrupted into a Nazi by its users and repurposed it for anti-FSG slander. Should fit right in!

In all seriousness it supposedly is driving our decisions on when to rotate or not - https://zone7.ai/

I find that deeply offensive.

Surely it is anti-FSG libel.

[Haggis36]

Leaving aside the internal politics part which read like a hard-to-follow soap opera, the article does raise interesting points and legitimate questions about the physical condition of some of our key players.

I think we all knew the likes of Salah, Robertson and Trent played too much football, but seeing it laid out so starkly hits it home even more - Robertson 8th worst (out of sample of 270) in terms of recovery between matches, Trent likely similar (not included in study). That's just looking at number of matches played and doesn't factor in physical effort in-game - looking at how much running those two are asked to get through in the average match (especially Robbo) must make that picture even worse. I've wondered in the past if we're risking the longevity of Trent's career with how much football we ask him to play - it's often levied at players who peak young and tail off early that they played too much football in their younger years, and there's now more football in the calendar than there ever has been.

We have the seemingly challenging trifecta of a manager/style of play that requires a far greater than normal amount of physical effort and expenditure, next to no rotation in certain key positions, and incredibly low squad turnover for a typical PL club - it must have a compound effect and therefore it's maybe not surprising we've look fucked this season, and which players have looked good (Diaz, Elliott, Tsimikas) and which ones have looked well below their best (Trent, Robertson, Salah, Fabinho). Mane has left, but looks a shadow of the player he once was despite being "in his prime", as most people on here would define it age-wise.

As much as we saw improvements in effort in the Ajax game, I don't think it's a question of "oh we're back to normal now" or "we just needed to get up to speed/fitness", I think there's a good chance we'll struggle to match our past exertions until we start bringing through a greater number of fresh/younger players, and I think this season could be a bit of a slog as a result. The biggest question for me is for which players is this a temporary blip that can be remedied with greater rest/rotation and for which is it the start of a possibly irreversible decline. I think there's players where it's obvious (looking at their ages if nothing else), but there's a few on the cusp that are a bit more worrying.

It's also an interesting point the article raises about asking squad players to come in somewhat cold and suddenly potentially double their mileage when going from just training to playing competitive games they are maybe not conditioned for. Does this not maybe call into question the logic of keeping older squad/back-up players? I mean we've got Milner now and people advocating moving Henderson and Firmino into similar roles, but the danger is that the shock of suddenly having to massively up your physical effort will either see those players look well short of the required pace (Milner) to the detriment of the team, or getting injured frequently and therefore not providing the depth they are there for (Firmino last year, Milner has often been injured when coming into the team to cover injuries and getting asked to play twice a week).

I'm not necessarily criticising the approach - we've achieved the most success we've had in the PL-era with it, but it doesn't seem the most sustainable and it leaves us in a position of potentially having to overhaul the squad over the next 2-3 years with an ownership model that probably can't afford it. Big job for Ward and Klopp.

[classycarra]

In all seriousness it supposedly is driving our decisions on when to rotate or not - https://zone7.ai/

Call me cynical, but I don't think they'll be posting an update for this season's injury reduction percentage on their website (their hypothesis is 33% for 21/22 season) - nor for the club to put out any more PR puff pieces on this

[Knight]

Snip

Good post. Given Tsimikas it feels odd to me that we’ve run Robertson into the ground so much recently. Was Tsimikas often injured last season?

[MH41]

The article smacks very much of too much volume, which is unsustainable.
70k pre season, involving track work and games.
55k during season. 28-30k for those not involved.
I take these general figures with a pinch of salt.
For a start, the track work in the 70k pre - season is mostly done at paces that will be irrelevant on a football pitch. It's training players at middle distance paces, when it's top speed that is required.  Is it worthwhile? I'm not sure, but it sure as hell can tire you out.
Even the differences in players running ability. I'm sure the likes of Robertson, Milner, Salah, Diaz can manage ok, but I'm fairly certain that players with different attributes, such as Konaté, VVD, Thiago, Firmino etc will find this type of work difficult, and end up running at slower speeds. What's the purpose of this type of session?
I would also doubt the high volume during the season for first choice players. Klopp constantly talks about recovery days, and no time for training as such, so would find it difficult to believe the volume.
Thirdly, if the staff are concerned about 'second' choice players coming in, and having to almost double their volume, why are they doing so 'little' in the first place? Could more use be made of using behind closed doors games for them, additional training if not going to be involved in the match day squad etc.
I'm extremely interested in all of this, but I think, in large, the article uses a lot of words, yet tells us little.

[Haggis36]

Call me cynical, but I don't think they'll be posting an update for this season's injury reduction percentage on their website (their hypothesis is 33% for 21/22 season) - nor for the club to put out any more PR puff pieces on this

Indeed. Interesting they cite they were responsible for reducing days lost through injury from 1500+ to 1008 - the difference is almost entirely accounted for by season-ending injuries to Gomez and VVD that had nothing to do with injury prevention.

Seems to have worked for some players who had better than typical seasons injury-wise (Henderson, Matip - both of whom have seemingly regressed to mean this season) but not for others (Thiago, Firmino) but either way not sure it made much of a difference to the squad as a whole.

[Dave McCoy]

Indeed. Interesting they cite they were responsible for reducing days lost through injury from 1500+ to 1008 - the difference is almost entirely accounted for by season-ending injuries to Gomez and VVD that had nothing to do with injury prevention.

Seems to have worked for some players who had better than typical seasons injury-wise (Henderson, Matip - both of whom have seemingly regressed to mean this season) but not for others (Thiago, Firmino) but either way not sure it made much of a difference to the squad as a whole.

The problem is we are only on game #8 for this season. So to say now that the current situation will hold through game #55 or whatever, while maybe likely, isn't a guaranteed.

[rushyman]

So, assuming we get no new injuries from international duty, who will be good to go again come oct 1?

[killer-heels]

So, assuming we get no new injuries from international duty, who will be good to go again come oct 1?

Lets just play these international matches first.

[keano7]

So, assuming we get no new injuries from international duty, who will be good to go again come oct 1?

Famous last words. We ALWAYS get injuries during the Internationals.

[rushyman]

Ok to rephrase

Who is coming to the end of their current injury?

[Eeyore]

Leaving aside the internal politics part which read like a hard-to-follow soap opera, the article does raise interesting points and legitimate questions about the physical condition of some of our key players.

I think we all knew the likes of Salah, Robertson and Trent played too much football, but seeing it laid out so starkly hits it home even more - Robertson 8th worst (out of sample of 270) in terms of recovery between matches, Trent likely similar (not included in study). That's just looking at number of matches played and doesn't factor in physical effort in-game - looking at how much running those two are asked to get through in the average match (especially Robbo) must make that picture even worse. I've wondered in the past if we're risking the longevity of Trent's career with how much football we ask him to play - it's often levied at players who peak young and tail off early that they played too much football in their younger years, and there's now more football in the calendar than there ever has been.

We have the seemingly challenging trifecta of a manager/style of play that requires a far greater than normal amount of physical effort and expenditure, next to no rotation in certain key positions, and incredibly low squad turnover for a typical PL club - it must have a compound effect and therefore it's maybe not surprising we've look fucked this season, and which players have looked good (Diaz, Elliott, Tsimikas) and which ones have looked well below their best (Trent, Robertson, Salah, Fabinho). Mane has left, but looks a shadow of the player he once was despite being "in his prime", as most people on here would define it age-wise.

As much as we saw improvements in effort in the Ajax game, I don't think it's a question of "oh we're back to normal now" or "we just needed to get up to speed/fitness", I think there's a good chance we'll struggle to match our past exertions until we start bringing through a greater number of fresh/younger players, and I think this season could be a bit of a slog as a result. The biggest question for me is for which players is this a temporary blip that can be remedied with greater rest/rotation and for which is it the start of a possibly irreversible decline. I think there's players where it's obvious (looking at their ages if nothing else), but there's a few on the cusp that are a bit more worrying.

It's also an interesting point the article raises about asking squad players to come in somewhat cold and suddenly potentially double their mileage when going from just training to playing competitive games they are maybe not conditioned for. Does this not maybe call into question the logic of keeping older squad/back-up players? I mean we've got Milner now and people advocating moving Henderson and Firmino into similar roles, but the danger is that the shock of suddenly having to massively up your physical effort will either see those players look well short of the required pace (Milner) to the detriment of the team, or getting injured frequently and therefore not providing the depth they are there for (Firmino last year, Milner has often been injured when coming into the team to cover injuries and getting asked to play twice a week).

I'm not necessarily criticising the approach - we've achieved the most success we've had in the PL-era with it, but it doesn't seem the most sustainable and it leaves us in a position of potentially having to overhaul the squad over the next 2-3 years with an ownership model that probably can't afford it. Big job for Ward and Klopp.

This is where the article falls down.

Robbo 8th out of 270 over the last 4 years. No shit sherlock.

Out of those 270 players how many of those teams have gone as deep in multiple competitions as us. Very few. So how have the players in positions 1 through 7 done. We don't get the answer to that.

The best bit though is that Robbo has been pretty bombproof in terms of injury. Hence why he has played so many games. So basically they are saying that if you play for four seasons with basically no injuries then sooner or later you are going to get an injury. 

[Ghost Town]

Agree, Al, but I'd go further and say the article falls down in many more ways. It's just a vague and sometimes random collection of claims and opinions, barely evidenced, with a few 'facts' and stats, a few quotes form one or two possibly non-disinterested parties, and lots of editorialising, all arranged in a way to try and imply links, causes and outcomes.

I used to know many an editor who would have spiked it and then thrown it into the trash.

[Haggis36]

This is where the article falls down.

Robbo 8th out of 270 over the last 4 years. No shit sherlock.

Out of those 270 players how many of those teams have gone as deep in multiple competitions as us. Very few. So how have the players in positions 1 through 7 done. We don't get the answer to that.

The best bit though is that Robbo has been pretty bombproof in terms of injury. Hence why he has played so many games. So basically they are saying that if you play for four seasons with basically no injuries then sooner or later you are going to get an injury.

Yes, we play more games than many other teams do. But that doesn't necessarily mean we should flog individual players to the point of exhaustion simply because those games exist? Agree it's not really a stretch to say playing too much football = bad so the article isn't making some new, groundbreaking point, just highlighting how overworked our players actually are.

Agreed it be interesting to see the breakdown of their sample, but if you look to the two most obvious comparative teams to us the story is the same:

Over the past 3 years:
- Chelsea have played more games than we have.  The only outfield players to break the 11,000 minutes mark are Mount (who is considerably younger) and Azpilicueta (who does a fraction of the running the likes of Robbo do). In each season, only one outfield player breaks the 4,000 minute mark (and never more than once in that three year period).
- City have also played more games than we have. Only Rodri breaks the 11,000 minute mark over that time period. In each season, only one outfield player in the squad breaks the 4,000 minute mark (and never more than once in that three year period).

Over the same three-year period Robbo has played nearly 12,600 mins despite us having fewer games, and breaks the 4000 minute mark in each of them (as does Salah). In fact Robbo has played 4000+ mins per season in four consecutive seasons. Only two players at City and Chelsea even come close to that - Sterling and Azpilicueta, both having done it twice in four years. I'd wager that neither players covers as much ground per game as Robertson though I wouldn't know where to find those stats.

Robbo doesn't get injured often but there has been a general downturn in his performances over the past 6+ months or so (likewise Salah and to a lesser extent Trent) and the one noticeable thing they all have in common is that they are rarely rotated and have all played a fuck-ton of football for us in the past 3-4 years with little respite. It's a valid consideration and arguably makes more sense than a whole host of world-class footballers suddenly losing form at the same time.

[TepidT2O]

Oh….


Henderson has been added to the England squad as he is now fit…

[Eeyore]

Yes, we play more games than many other teams do. But that doesn't necessarily mean we should flog individual players to the point of exhaustion simply because those games exist? Agree it's not really a stretch to say playing too much football = bad so the article isn't making some new, groundbreaking point, just highlighting how overworked our players actually are.

Agreed it be interesting to see the breakdown of their sample, but if you look to the two most obvious comparative teams to us the story is the same:

Over the past 3 years:
- Chelsea have played more games than we have.  The only outfield players to break the 11,000 minutes mark are Mount (who is considerably younger) and Azpilicueta (who does a fraction of the running the likes of Robbo do). In each season, only one outfield player breaks the 4,000 minute mark (and never more than once in that three year period).
- City have also played more games than we have. Only Rodri breaks the 11,000 minute mark over that time period. In each season, only one outfield player in the squad breaks the 4,000 minute mark (and never more than once in that three year period).

Over the same three-year period Robbo has played nearly 12,600 mins despite us having fewer games, and breaks the 4000 minute mark in each of them (as does Salah). In fact Robbo has played 4000+ mins per season in four consecutive seasons. Only two players at City and Chelsea even come close to that - Sterling and Azpilicueta, both having done it twice in four years. I'd wager that neither players covers as much ground per game as Robertson though I wouldn't know where to find those stats.

Robbo doesn't get injured often but there has been a general downturn in his performances over the past 6+ months or so (likewise Salah and to a lesser extent Trent) and the one noticeable thing they all have in common is that they are rarely rotated and have all played a fuck-ton of football for us in the past 3-4 years with little respite. It's a valid consideration and arguably makes more sense than a whole host of world-class footballers suddenly losing form at the same time.

Those two teams though have been funded by petrodollars and have much deeper squads than us as a result of that. Personally for me the downturn in Robbos form has come at the same time as he has been putting in a massive effort as Scotland captain. The same thing has happened with Salah who was in the form of his life until Afcon.

Is the problem our training regime or the farcical Football calender.

[So… Howard Philips]

Oh….


Henderson has been added to the England squad as he is now fit…

Oh joy.

[redgriffin73]

Good of them to test his resolve for us.

[Wabaloolah]

Oh….


Henderson has been added to the England squad as he is now fit…

great news that he's fit just hope he doesn't get a recurrence in an intense international period. I bet Klopp is seething about it

[JasonF]

Explaining Curtis Jones’ injury and ‘tibial stress reaction’

https://www.thisisanfield.com/2022/09/explaining-curtis-jones-injury-and-tibial-stress-reaction/

Interesting read on Jones' injury. Some of it will be speculation but a decent overview.

[newterp]

Where do we stand on the injury front - feel like I read something last week that said much of the team will be back and healthy.

[Samie]

Ibou Konaté is in the final stage of his recovery and has “received the green light from the medical staff for a return to the group next weekend”.

[@RMCsport]

[redgriffin73]

My stomach just lurched seeing this thread pop up after an international break

[newterp]

My stomach just lurched seeing this thread pop up after an international break

lol - I knew that was going to happen - I was hesitant to post for that reason!

[Black Bull Nova]

My stomach just lurched seeing this thread pop up after an international break

Does that mean we put you down as not available at the weekend  (Stomach Injury, 1 week) or can you see yourself recovering


Hopefully you are the only casualty of the international/monarchial break


You could heal a broken leg in the time we've had off

[Fromola]

Where do we stand on the injury front - feel like I read something last week that said much of the team will be back and healthy.

We'll have to wait for Klopp's pre-match press conference.

Should be looking a lot better but they'll be back in training today and tomorrow.

[So… Howard Philips]

Be interesting to see where we are with Jones and Kelleher.

[Schmidt]

lol - I knew that was going to happen - I was hesitant to post for that reason!

Samie would never let something as silly as other peoples emotions get in the way of him pasting shit from twitter.

[Grobbelrevell]

Be interesting to see where we are with Jones and Kelleher.

Yeah, it's him i'm particularly interested in an update for. It doesn't half feel like he's picked up injuries at incredibly inopportune moments in his relatively short time as a first team squad member, curtailing what could have been huge opportunities to stake a claim in the team for himself.

Hope we get some positive news on him anyway.

[Too early for flapjacks?]

So this seems to be the latest:

- Henderson returned to action over the international break so is available.
- Konate started full training this week so might make the squad for Brighton.
- Robertson not quite ready to resume training so likely to miss Brighton.
- Klopp said in his Ajax press conference that he expects Keita to return sometime in October but assume it's towards the end of the month.
- Kelleher and Ramsay probably not far off as they were recently doing some work outdoors.
- Ox and Jones still a bit unclear.

Will find out more on Friday in Klopp's press conference.

[thaddeus]

So this seems to be the latest:

- Henderson returned to action over the international break so is available.
- Konate started full training this week so might make the squad for Brighton.
- Robertson not quite ready to resume training so likely to miss Brighton.
- Klopp said in his Ajax press conference that he expects Keita to return sometime in October but assume it's towards the end of the month.
- Kelleher and Ramsay probably not far off as they were recently doing some work outdoors.
- Ox and Jones still a bit unclear.

Will find out more on Friday in Klopp's press conference.

Thanks, that's mostly positive on top of the likes of Thiago and Jota already returning from injury.

Hopefully Hendo dragging the team bus around the car park to prove his mettle to Southgate hasn't done him any harm.  I appreciate he's England's vice captain (and, in practice, he's the off-pitch captain) but considering how little he played it would have been better for him to have continued his rehab with us.