Tyler Onyango loan cut short with hamstring injury

Now, I have no factual basis for believing this – it's just a perception that serious injury seems to have become a right of passage for our young players trying to make their way through our Academy to secure their future careers as professional footballers.

On the other hand, we hear from many that U18s and U21s football is too far removed from proper professional football and that going out on loan to experience amongst other things the real rigours, the rough and tumble of League One, League Two or the Championship is what our Academy players need most of all.

No more molly-codling at Finch Farm? Yet I suspect most of these injuries occur at Finch Farm, at least in training and also in the games they are playing. So hard to relate that to a lack of competitiveness at this level.

Or do you just accept the risk of serious injury in football, and do nothing to try to mitigate for it by some strategy for prevention?

I agree with you entirely there does seem to be a disproportionate amount of these injuries at the club. Or, maybe it's the same at every club and it's the modern game to blame.

Injuries years ago seemed to come about during the game... breaks and strains etc now there seems to be a preponderance of problems occurring at the training ground. Or from time to time, in the pre-match warm-up.

His hand went to his thigh and he got up fast but limping and went off. Even Dunc, a week later called it a bad thigh injury.

So, it's a hammy instead.

Don't know about Finch Farm or training, but the overwhelming majority of players don't suffer bad hamstring injuries.

Just one of those things.

I think you have a great deal of experience of how the Academy players have played and operated because of your reporting of these games during the last few years.

Although you say you have no factual basis for believing there are too many injuries in the case of these young players I think if (you have the time and) you looked back at these injuries you would find that you are correct and quite a few young players have been sidelined for long periods by these incidents.

I couldn't say if other clubs have the same problems or not.

Some players are coming back quicker from broken ankles than they are from this type of injury and, although everyone moans or winces at some of the more dangerous tackles, it's apparent that this type of injury is not really caused by contact does seem to keep players out longer than anything else in the ultra-fast game of today?

Reasons given for this:

1. Better treatment of other injuries
2. Increased intensity of the professional game
3. Increased travel / more games.

34% occurred during training and 66% during matches.

Link

I was fortunate, I didn't get my first hamstring injury until I was 40, by which time my playing days were over. I done it on a sprint session. Yes okay, a 40-year-old type of sprint session. I was sprinting in my own mind!!

I've broken both legs and both ankles. Done the ligaments in my left ankle as well. Obviously not all at the same time. I came back quickly from the breaks. The ligaments were a bit more tricky and took time and patience as well as physio. Just when you thought you were good because you could run straight lines, the moment you tried training on the pitch, you broke down. The recovery is quite long.

But the most difficult injury I had to recover from? Tearing my quad. Very painful and like ligaments, difficult to recover from quickly when all you want to do is get back on the pitch as soon as you think you're okay, but really you are not.

Yes, I was broadening the remit somewhat to cover all serious or injuries, especially ones that resulted in prolonged absences for young players at critical stages of their development.

I'm a strong believer in the prevention of accidents. But you say "Just one of those things." Is it though? Or can such things be prevented? Oh, no, I shouldn't ask you as you now live in the wonderful land of no-fault car insurance and I witnessed for myself what that does to the accident-prevention mindset!!! (Or does that vary by State?) But I digress...

He came off on 22 minutes, so it's not something that you can necessarily ascribe to effort expended over the length of the game. But perhaps he got to start when he wasn't 100%... but then as a professional footballer, are you ever really 100%?

Dave @5,

Exactly what I was thinking as I was scratching out my effort @2.

I do try to tag the players in my stats file each season who spent ages on the sidelines. But for the U18s and U21s, it often has to be inferred by their prolonged absence from the team(s) as our delightful club, famous for its openness and transparency, tells us diddly squat about such things.

Pete @7,

Brilliant piece of research and ferreting! Many thanks for that. Cheers!

I'd add, we consider the clubs used for the study and how many top club managers complain about the lack of recovery time players receive given the number of games they play.

To increase the homogeneity of the cohort over different seasons, the data reported here only include players from teams during seasons in which they qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League.

We keep in mind that reported injuries include those players (Calvert-Lewin, for instance) who injure the hamstring, miss games, go back out and play, then injure the hammy again.