By Tony Attwood
Obviously no club wants to have its players injured, and there is much debate in the medical world as to why some players get injured more often and how others manage to avoid injuries. Not just because players are wanted on the pitch but because rarely injured players find their vlaue goes up in the transfer market.
Unfortunately there appears to be no set rules in terms of measuring player injuries, which is odd, since so many publications report on such things. For example, if a player has just started back in limited training, is he still injured? Does a player who is an under 21, and so not in the official 25 man squad, count as “injured” when he can’t play? In some squads yes, in others no. Or when a doctor recommends a period of slow recovery after a physical injury, is he injured, or not injured but not available for selection, or… Different clubs seems to account for injuries in different ways.
Meanwhile given that some referees can oversee games involving the same club four, five or even six times in a season, and given that they all talk to each other, they quickly become aware that some players have a reputation of gonig down “too easily,” and that can affect the referees’ reaction.
Last season Tottenham got 101 yellow cards and four reds last season compared to Arsenal’s 51 and no reds – a massive difference, although some Totty fans suggested that Tottenham had a reputation for fouling, and so they were more harshly dealt with by referees.
Mind you, Tottenham also the worst record in terms of yellow cards at home: 53 home yellow cards in fact. They also got three red cards at home – no club got more than three. Arsenal got one third of the number of home yellows as Tottenham.
Of course Tottenham could have changed their style and approach to reduce the number of cards, even if they argued that they were deliberately being targetted by referees. But they didn’t and perhaps as a result Tottenham won three home games in the league last season. Same as Wolverhampton.
Tottenham even managed to lose more player days to injury than Arsenal (625 compared with 603). But this primarily reflects referees and London clubs. Three of the four clubs with the most days in which players were injured were London based: Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea. Northern supporters tell us it is because our players are soft. The club that lost the most player days through injury lost three times as many days as the club that lost the least. The club that got the most injuries (meaning a player was not available to play the next game) got over twice as many injuries as the club that got the fewest. The differences are enormous, and must (in part if not 100% be explained by deliberate targetting of certain players, and referees deliberately ignoring the severity of some illegal tackles.
