Newcastle United have suffered injuries over the Christmas holiday, but the injury statistics paint a different story.
Newcastle United have missed 434 days due to injury this season, including 22 injuries in the first half of the season.
Newcastle United are top of the Premier League injury rankings, with 12 players sidelined, while manager Steve Bruce confronts concerns about his methods and the club’s injury policy.
Newcastle’s dreadful Christmas was topped by losing four players in less than 50 minutes on New Year’s Day, after Bruce admitted to asking Florian Lejeune to play while weary. On a bad day, the defender made two mistakes, giving Leiecester opportunities.
And it got worse on Saturday, when Newcastle suffered two more injuries against Wolves. While Joelinton played through the discomfort, Dwight Gayle and Paul Dummett were taken off the field.
But does this brief period tell the whole story?
PremierInjuries.com conducted an independent injury analysis for ChronicleLive and discovered that the club is actually in BETTER health than they were at the same point last season.
Newcastle had 20 injuries this season as of January 2, accounting for 434 ‘lost’ days. By the same January 2 date last year, they had sustained 22 injuries, accounting for 475 ‘lost’ days.
They had 20 injuries by January 2 of the 2017/18 season, their first in the Premier League after promotion from the Championship.
PremierInjuries.com’s Ben Dinnery, who compiles injury data on top flight clubs, has recorded seven’soft tissue’ injuries this season. This is down from 13 at the same point last season, as Newcastle continues to struggle.
The site only considers absences that last more than nine days for the sake of gathering this data, as anything less is considered a precaution. “The record was much better this season in the early part of the season,” Dinnery said, “but there isn’t a lot of change in terms of the last three seasons at this point.”
“That may surprise you.”
Many of his approaches have lasted, and it’s worth noting that Newcastle continues to rely substantially on recent sports science initiatives. Orreco, the Irish-based sports science and data professionals who are pioneers in their industry, is still retained by Newcastle.
They use blood indicators to alert the club’s medical team to potential difficulties, and Jamie Harley, the club’s sports science chief, continues to work on this.
What has changed is the man in charge. Bruce’s interpretation of such information will undoubtedly differ from Benitez’s, and it is possible that the Newcastle Head Coach relies more on players’ unique instincts when selecting whether or not to play them.
