Jason McKenna follows up on his excellent Cost of Injuries article which looked at 2022/2023 to assess which injuries cost Premier League clubs the most and what injury trends are showing us
The 2023/24 season saw a continuation of many of the recent trends in injury data. Overall, injury burdens have gotten bigger for clubs as the footballing authorities ignore the warnings around player use and the increasingly congested football calendar. This has thrown up some fascinating discoveries about trends within the Premier League that will be analysed and explored. As always, injuries are not black and white. Just because a club has a high amount of injuries it does not automatically mean that their backroom staff should come under criticism; instead, there are a lot of factors at play that will be discussed.
In The Midst Of A Crisis
Before looking at the Premier League data the record-breaking numbers must be put into context. There has been an 11% increase in total injuries from last season in the English top flight, but this should be no surprise. Organisations like FIFPro have issued repeated in-depth analyses that have delved into how dangerous the workloads of players are. In their latest conference in 2024, the European president of the FIFPro Players Union, David Terrier, explained that “there is an emergency – we are in danger” and that there is a “rise to dangerous mental and physical fatigue”[1].
The report also highlighted that “50% of respondents said they had been forced to play while already carrying an injury, while 82% of managers said they had fielded a player they knew required a rest”[2]. Incidents like this, at least from the outside, seem to have become more prevalent in the Premier League this season with more individuals being risked due to lack of replacements in the squad. Individual incidents, like Luke Shaw being played in a hectic schedule even after coming back from an injury that requires conservative management, are pointers to the desperation that some clubs find themselves in.
Thus, the shocking data for the 2023/24 season must be put into that context, acknowledging that club medical staff are working under the hardest conditions we may have ever seen.
Team News
Looking at the total lost time injuries (an injury sustained while playing or training that results in the loss of productive work time), we can see that only five teams in the league have managed to improve their injury burden. These improvements are almost fairly minimal but overall the Premier League has seen 67 more lost time injuries compared to last season. The fact that almost all teams have regressed emphasises what many have warned about: players are suffering from being worked too hard.
Most impressive team among lost time injuries was Bournemouth. They had a 27% decrease in lost time injuries this season while also having their best-ever Premier League finish. Their amazing squad availability may also be the reason behind their fortunes in the league as it allowed them to be consistent with their tactics and personnel.
To emphasise the damage of the unbelievable exposure levels that players now have to endure below the injuries per 1k mins have also regressed among almost every club, adding further to the narrative that all teams have suffered due to the recklessly large schedules.
One of the trends that may define the 2024/25 season is that of Crystal Palace and arguably the worst injury record in the league. Their huge 10.0 injury incidence per 1k minutes played is incredibly worrying, but the added issue around this is the fact that these losses were to key personnel from a squad with very limited depth. Not to delve too much into rumour, but summer 2024 is likely to see Crystal Palace lose some of these individuals, which may weaken the squad. New boss Oliver Glasner will then have the issue of battling injuries whilst settling personnel in a season where some team talismans may no longer be around. Glasner’s high pressing style will also be a factor here, and Palace have their work cut out turning their injury fortunes around.
Turning to injury costs as a peercentage of wages, the struggles of Newcastle can are very well represented in the graph below. The team managed to beat the odds and qualify for the Champions League this season, but the stretch to their squad competing in Europe’s premier football competition was too much. Indeed, the team went from one of the best injury records last season to one of the worst.
Instead of having 10 players with an almost constant presence in the team like last season, key members were in and out of the team all season. The 22.44% wages lost to injuries was the worst in the Premier League and emphasises the amount of resources that were spent on players who were not available.
Newcastle have more leeway than most due to huge financial backing, but the team with the third highest ratio of wages lost to injuries was Brighton and they do not have the same financial freedom. Brighton’s club model has been praised for their ability to eke out fantastic performances from very limited funds. However, this season they find themselves in the top four for injury incidence with 9.3 injuries per 1k mins played and 19% of wages lost to injuries. As people look to explain why the Seagulls had such a fantastic 2022/23 season and less impressive 2023/24 campaign, injuries are once again one of the biggest impacts on the outcomes of this team.
The Best Team In The League?
Finally, it can be argued that West Ham have the best injury record of all teams in the league. There are many explanations behind what has happened at clubs, but working off the data alone West Ham’s data is truly impressive, especially with a lot of context explained. The medical team deserves a lot of plaudits for keeping a relatively thin squad that had high exposure to have some of the best numbers in the league. But what makes the numbers even incredible is the fact that this availability rate comes after after multiple seasons in gruelling, long European campaigns. The exposure that this squad has had is comparable to a lot of the “bigger” clubs, but the squad has been so carefully managed to make sure that the key players have been able to compete on many fronts.
Looking at a review of their season the availability of key players has been sensational with the team suffering the joint fifth least time loss injuries, lowest days lost, lowest games lost, and fourth lowest injury incidence per 1k mins played.
The Most Costly Players: Individual
Looking at the graph below, it seems amazing to think that Kevin De Bruyne was one of the best players this season and yet also had an extended time out on the sidelines which made him have the most costly individual injury. His resurgence to fire Manchester City to the title in the second half of the season is a testament to his own individual work ethic to be able to come back after a terrible injury, but also the amazing work of the team at City to oversee his return without suffering another setback. His story is one of great injury management by the club, who then reaped the rewards of their intelligent work and De Bruyne’s own application. He has now been consistently producing some of the best underlying data in Europe’s top 5 leagues, as per FB Ref.
But there are also some particularly concerning stories in this list. Reece James and Anthony Martial are once again in the line-up. Anthony Martial has now become synonymous with injuries and his unfortunate history is not something to analyse here, but Chelsea captain James could now be seen in the same group as the Manchester United forward. James has become a player who suffers with injury after injury, meaning he has rarely been available for the team this season. This has been a significant hit to Chelsea, who have struggled throughout the season, but it is also deeply worrying for Reece James as an individual. The recurrence of these injuries makes it harder for him to be able to return to his peak. The longer he is not on the pitch and playing in competitive matches, the more he will decondition and it will become less likely that he can return to previous athletic peaks. Since the start of the 2021/22 season the right-back has missed 83 games through injury, showing a worrying trend that he is now unable to shake off injury issues.
Conclusions
What is clear to see is that by footballing authorities continuing to ignore medical warnings, players are being put more at risk. It seems that we are already at a “breaking point” as injuries are climbing to record highs year on year.
Certain clubs have larger issues than others, and it will be interesting to see how certain squads cope with the new workloads they have due to qualifying for European competitions. Aston Villa, for example, had a worrying trend upwards of injuries season on season and thus could see a repetition of the problems that Newcastle endured this season if they do not manage loads and get enough squad depth for the Champions League.
But even in an era of incredible workloads and recording breaking bad numbers, there are success stories. Bournemouth and West Ham are those outside of the “top clubs” who have used resources smartly so that their availability was amongst the best in the league. Injuries also enabled a very tight title race too. Arsenal and Manchester City were able to push each other until the final day of the season with excellent performances on the pitch, but also incredible squad management that saw them both have some of the best injury data in the league. Often, the best player ability is being available and thus Arsenal and Manchester City have worked on this a lot to make sure their squads are managed well through a whole campaign. Kevin De Bruyne’s post-injury management is testament to that.
[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/fifpro-gianni-infantino-richard-masters-javier-tebas-london-b2554092.html
[2] Ibid.
Header image copyright IMAGO / Domenic Aquilina
Data courtesy of Premier Injuries Ltd
