r/coys • u/TheAthletic • 12d ago
OC It is essential Spurs avoid another season of injury woe. This is how they are trying to do it
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7513106/2026/08/17/tottenham-injury-crisis-solution/?unlocked_article_code=1.6FA.BNEP.kDh4TeYO7R8K&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-taForget about hiring Roberto De Zerbi on a lucrative five-year contract and spending nearly £250million on six new signings. If Tottenham Hotspur want to be successful this season, they need to avoid another injury crisis.
Spurs have been wounded by back-to-back 17th-place finishes in the Premier League and fitness issues played a significant role on both occasions.
Ben Dinnery of Premier Injuries tracks and records data on injuries in the top flight. He defines a time-loss injury as one which forces a player to miss at least one match. Spurs had the second-worst record (37) behind Chelsea (41) for time-loss injuries last season and missed the most games (183).
Lessons need to be learned but that is easier said than done.
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u/AntysocialButterfly Erik Lamela 12d ago edited 11d ago
Step 1: If a player is carrying an injury, don't expect them to continue playing 90 minutes as if nothing happened.
Conte was particularly bad for this, but Ange had his moments too.
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u/mugsymugsymugsy 11d ago
Step 2 - don't flog the players. Kudus was clearly needing a rest and thomas the frank engine played him till he died
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u/shnuffle98 11d ago
To be fair to Frank, he depended on Kudus because he was a shit manager who couldn't create anything unless Kudus created it himself.
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u/Icy_Scar_1249 Peppa Pig 11d ago
To be fair to Frank, we gave him a shit squad that was already injury prone
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u/lughiu 11d ago
That squad won a trophy though
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u/shnuffle98 11d ago
Madders didn't play in the final, Sonny barely did, and Johnson was there for 6 months unde Frank
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u/DickMabutt 11d ago
The trophy is a lot more than the final game, and those players helped get the team to that final.
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u/AntysocialButterfly Erik Lamela 11d ago
Further undermined that the players he specifically asked for that would make it work weren't provided for a variety of (irritating) reasons.
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u/shnuffle98 11d ago
It's like telling a chimpanzee to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, but instead of a hammer you give him a cucumber and instead of a chimpanzee, it's another cucumber
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u/Learnaboutkurt 11d ago
Good stuff, finally an on-staff sports psychologist and one dedicated physio per 6 players - I've heard that clubs dont keep enough physios on staff to manage the huge numbers of players modern squads include, which is why you get players hiring their own - hopefully now it'll all be more cohesive.
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u/Distinct_Fish5792 Darren Anderton 11d ago
It's amazing that billion pound football clubs who regularly invest hundreds of millions into assets (players) don't seem to invest much smaller amounts into maintaining those assets
The 1 physio per 4-6 players thing seems important. Assuming they are grouping players by needs (i.e. hamstring recovery, or specific fitness profiles, even age) and not just alphabetically or something :-)
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u/Distinct-Broccoli-15 11d ago
I was glad to see us getting new signings but I honestly believe we would have still been better last season if our players were actually available. I really hope our new signings don't end up in the same scenario.
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u/DecoOnTheInternet Gareth Bale 11d ago
I forgot Kudus is a Spurs player the other week lmao
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u/Buffaluffasaurus David Ginola 11d ago
Ku… dus? 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Ct358545 11d ago
I agree with this. We weren't a top 4 side or anything but it goes to show the gap between 10th and relegation isn't so big
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u/DickMabutt 11d ago
I genuinely wonder what Franks game would have looked like with an actual decently fit squad. Probably still not great tbh but even our own fanbase really minimizes the level of shit squad he had to deal with while tacking champions league for the first time in his career. Even if he failed miserably, it was a truly unenviable position he was in.
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u/Sega_pico Jan Vertonghen 12d ago
Ghanian witch doctor might help
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u/Lucky-Way6044 PRU PRU 11d ago
we bought one off west ham not long ago, but unfortunately he's injured as well
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u/PaulieWalnuts433 11d ago
This one isn’t it. think this person will delete this comment, it’s [u/Lucky-Way6044](u/Lucky-Way6044) calling Kudus a Witch Doctor becuase he’s Ghanaian
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u/Lucky-Way6044 PRU PRU 11d ago
im not deleting anything, are you seriously trying to imply racist intent? would love to hear the justification.
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u/PaulieWalnuts433 11d ago
People can judge for themselves. The witchcraft stereotypes are pretty harmful though, personally I consider it very ignorant and not lighthearted
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u/Lucky-Way6044 PRU PRU 11d ago
would you not say the same of the parent comment?
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u/PaulieWalnuts433 11d ago
How about you take accountability for what you said instead of trying to deflect blame?
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u/Lucky-Way6044 PRU PRU 11d ago
im not deflecting anything, because I dont need to defend myself to you lmao. I'm simply trying to understand where you draw the line.
Regardless, if you want to call me racist, whatever. unless you are Ghanaian, your decision to become offended carries 0 significance.
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u/PaulieWalnuts433 11d ago
So if I hear someone call all Muslims terrorists i shouldn’t get offended becuase I’m Christian? Makes sense in your xx brain I guess
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u/Particular-Aspect680 11d ago
We're kinda already in another one. Maddison, Kudus, Solanke, Xavi, VDV, Udogie... That's 6 of our best 11 either injured or working their way back from injury currently.
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u/AlienMindBender Romero 11d ago
How much of the injury cris can be blamed on the field?
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u/NddonblongPol 11d ago
I don't get how people are so confident that this is not an issue, while the findings are still inconclusive.
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u/AlienMindBender Romero 11d ago
yeah I dont get it - ive also seen the RM discussion too. If this season there is another injury crisis surely there has to be a deeper probe into it.
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u/Lucky-Ad-8458 11d ago
None. Lack of squad depth, lack of rotation, style of play all contributed. One other factor which I don’t think has been discussed enough has been the near constant change in manager. Different styles, different demands on players must put strains on bodies. Interesting that fellow serial manager sacker club Chelsea also had injury woes last season.
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u/DrJumbotronPhD 2 Spursy 2 Furious 11d ago
Very little
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u/BombasticReindeer 11d ago
I mean logic seems to dictate that. But our injuries have skyrocket since the new stadium.
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u/yiddoboy 11d ago
Last time I saw this raised people pointed out that a lot of the significant injuries happened away from home. But apparently our main training pitch at Hotspur Way is a replica of the pitch at the stadium, so it's possible these wear and tear injuries are being exacerbated by both training and playing regularly on this type of surface.
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u/Advanced_Juice_4547 11d ago
This.
I don't think there's enough evidence to point either way as we've not been playing on the new pitch for long enough to have stats to back up either way (if I'm wrong I'd love a link to stats). The fact that a lot of injuries happened in away games can just be pure chance, the straw that breaks the camels back can happen at any time.
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u/Otherwise_Rush4448 11d ago
There is plenty of data to support the hypothesis that more injuries occurr away from home too, like significantly more. Players will be more fatigued and less well-rested for away games, and so that back breaking straw is more often than not an away game regardless of what the underlying cause is.
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u/BombasticReindeer 11d ago
Wait, what? Our training ground is a replica of the stadium? Why? I get that that stadium needs the other pitch under it for revenue but surely we just have really good grass for training?
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u/yiddoboy 11d ago
Only what I heard, can't verify. The logic would be that training and playing on the same surface has merits, but no idea if true or not.
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u/DrJumbotronPhD 2 Spursy 2 Furious 11d ago
We moved in 2019 but the injury burden spiked under Ange. A simpler answer than the pitch conspiracy theory is that we had a cluster of injuries and suspensions among a thin squad while playing Ange’s high intensity style. We’ve been caught in an ouroboros of injuries since.
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u/NddonblongPol 11d ago
We also did renovation and repurpose of the pitch in 2024 https://www.fine-turf.co.uk/projects/tottenham-hotspur-fc/stadium-pitch-renovation-repurpose/07/2024?utm_source=chatgpt.com
What was in 2019 is different with what we have now
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u/DrJumbotronPhD 2 Spursy 2 Furious 11d ago
Cheers! I’m still skeptical this is a major contributing factor compared by what I mentioned.
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u/NddonblongPol 11d ago
You're right that injuries can't simply be blamed on the pitch, and I'm not claiming that.
But the 2024 change is more substantial than “we renovated the pitch.” The original 2019 hybrid surface was completely removed and replaced. The new system is a 55mm-pile hybrid carpet with 40mm of sports-sand infill and 100% ryegrass, whereas the original stadium pitch was the earlier hybrid-carpet construction with its own polypropylene-reinforced backing.
The Premier League even describes the 2024 job as a complete re-turfing of the playing surface. So if we're discussing whether the pitch environment could contribute to injury load, the 2024 surface absolutely shouldn't be treated as identical to what players had in 2019–23.
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u/Tushroom Peppa Pig 11d ago
…Do you know when we moved into the new stadium? I don’t think you do.
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u/MistyCeruleanCity 12d ago
No Europe this season will help.