It’s been a torrid time this season, with the club seemingly decimated by injuries across the park. Unprecedented scenes with many key players ruled out, Imps’ fans see it as the one reason we haven’t sustained a top-six assault.
It’s been a struggle that’s for sure, but the perceived injury crisis we’ve endured isn’t actually real. That’s right, the narrative that we’ve been pushing for weeks on here isn’t true at all. It’s been proven by my favourite thing. Stats.
There’s no denying we have been unlucky with injuries, but it isn’t the severity or length that has been the problem, it has been the position. Losing Ben House, Tyler Walker, and Reeco Hackett robbed us of three of our front line, the best three one could argue, and that has been a struggle. However, across the rest of the field, we’ve performed relatively well on injuries.
I was lucky enough to get access to some data from the club this week. It’s not biased data they’ve put together themselves, but a study was done in conduction with Nottingham Trent University. Medical data is submitted by all clubs to the FL – it is a mandatory exercise, so the numbers are reflective of the whole league’s data. It’s my understanding this report was presented to the board by the medical team, and it suggests that this season, we’ve performed better in terms of injuries than at any point after the 20/21 season.
The data contrasted our season with the average in League One, and the data suggests we’re not having the torrid season many think. We’ve lost 17 players to injury this season – six during matches and 11 in training. The league average is 20 per club, 13 during matches and seven during training. What has hit us is the severity of individual injuries – Ben House and Tyler Walker have sustained long-term problems, and that has led to us losing 551 hours, compared to the average of 459 hours.
In means our match injury rate is below average for the first time in three seasons, but it is the third season our match injury severity has been below average. The data does have some interesting points – we’re above average on muscle strains, tears, and ruptures, around 80% compared to around 50% league average. I say ‘around’ because the data is presented in bar graphs. We also seem to have many more thigh injuries than most, around 70% of our injuries are thigh-related, compared to around 40% across the division.
What Do The Club Say
I’ve chatted to Kieran Walker, head of medical, about the numbers, and tried to get some insight into the trends. As we concluded on the podcast, it is the severity of injuries that have caused us issues.
“We have actually been performing well regarding training and availability percentages (around 90% for the majority of the season)” he confirmed. “That’s more than the three previous seasons. Also, we’ve had 230 fewer days absent due to injury/illness compared to the rest of the league.”
I also picked up the points about our seemingly high thigh numbers, which he was happy to clear up.
“The ‘thigh category’ includes quad, hamstring and groin injuries. These injuries have accounted for 71% of our injuries. Compared to the league average being 37%. When working in percentages I totally agree it seems massive, however, for context we’ve had five hamstring injuries compared to the league average of four, four groin injuries compared to the league average of two, and three quadricep injuries compared to the league average of two.
“Because these numbers aren’t massive percentage differences can often look overinflated and not be the best mode of comparison. For example, it means we’ve had 50% more groin injuries compared to the league average when we are comparing four to two. These groin injuries have cost us a total of 11 days absent – not severe at all.”
“With that said, we have been working hard this year to reduce the number/severity of hamstring injuries as this is the muscle group most injured in professional football.”
Why Does It Feel So Bad?
If we’re below average, why does it feel like we’ve been decimated? The problem is both severity and the position. If we’d lost (for example) Tyler and Paudie O’Connor to injury, would it have been felt as much? Paudie is captain, but across the back, we have the numbers to cover, and with Ben House fit, we’d have a focal point in the attack. If we’d lost Mide, Haks, and Jovon at one time, would it have been felt as badly? Not if Reeco, Be and Tyler were fit.
The problem hasn’t been an injury crisis in terms of numbers, although there has been the odd game where we’ve felt torn to pieces. However, overall, the medical team has kept players fit and ready to go – the problem has been the profile of players injured within the first team setup and, of course, the length of Ben and Tyler’s injuries.
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