Hunt out.

[morganb]

I wonder if there are similar conversations going on on the forums of Burton, Blackpool and Peterborough (the three teams below us)

[WestYorksRoyal]

2) we seemed to have regressed on the injury front - back to the pre Selles days. Why is that ? Bad luck or wrong training, prep whatever. Needs to be fixed

This is a concern for me. O'Connor barely misses a game for Lincoln and Bradford for about 4 years apart from suspension, but has missed the first 7 games due to a muscle strain injury picked up in training. Muscle strains always suggest something has gone wrong with managing fitness, and to get it in training before the season has even started is unforgivable. It sounds like he's close, but he'll also need time to settle into the team when he's back.

Ahmed struggled yesterday - where was Abrefa? He's not as high potential as Ahmed, but is more experienced now and should be a viable option.

Ritchie had a proper pre season with Portsmouth - was he not ready even for the bench yesterday?

Tim Dellor reported after the game yesterday that everyone's favourite scapegoat, but not actually that bad, Camara was hobbling down the tunnel at FT supported by two staff members. Did I miss his big collision or the haymaker tackle on him? Or is it a non contact injury for a player who only played 15 minutes?

Do better - it's been like this for years except a brief respite under Selles.

Seem to be a few minor non-contact injuries and cramp occurring about the squad, not sure that’s an entirely good sign of the fitness regime but then I’m sure the professionals know what they’re doing and despite the few problems it’s only really been O’Connor that would seem to be the loss.

Of the others crocked, Yiadom has been mostly permanently injured for 2 seasons and Abrefa has similarly been seeing a lot of the physio ever since breaking into the squad so it’s seems to be just more of the same really.

I think O'Connor has been huge. He was the marquee signing; a genuine top L1 player, organiser of defence, character and leader on the pitch. Ahmed, Jacob and midfielders in front of him should all benefit from his presence. When him and Williams get a run of games together, we won't keep conceding 2 or 3 a game.

[rabidbee]

Could Camara's issues be related to flying to Africa and playing two games? (I know cabin pressure affects athletic recovery, but not for how long afterwards.)

Did we have a big clear out of the sports scientists and physios under Dai? Perhaps we're still a bit threadbare in the back office? Or perhaps it's just really unfortunate that O'Connor got a bad injury in the pre-season, and not something you can mitigate against.

[Orion1871]

I'd certainly give Noel a little longer to work it out. He's been unlucky with his big defensive signing not having kicked a competitive ball for the club. Get O'Connor back and see how he does with making the defence more secure. If there isn't a big improvement from there then it may be time for a change.

The problem with him is that he doesn't appear to have many in game strengths and some of his tactics (the amount of long balls to tiny attackers), or his team selection (Fraser playing out of position). These really are things where he doesn't help himself.

I really want him to succeed, and I hate to say this, but I just don't see anything that makes him stand out as anything other than a stopgap. There are several former Reading managers who I've been glad to see the back of, but losing Noel would give me no pleasure at all.

[Millsy]

I wonder if there are similar conversations going on on the forums of Burton, Blackpool and Peterborough (the three teams below us)

Probably not.

“For beds to be wetting, the place to be heading is Reading.”

[Orion1871]

^
Ironic to see you posting about bed wetting given your meLOLtdown on AE the other day.

[stealthpapes]

Could Camara's issues be related to flying to Africa and playing two games? (I know cabin pressure affects athletic recovery, but not for how long afterwards.)

Did we have a big clear out of the sports scientists and physios under Dai? Perhaps we're still a bit threadbare in the back office? Or perhaps it's just really unfortunate that O'Connor got a bad injury in the pre-season, and not something you can mitigate against.

I'm surprised there's been little analysis of injuries in professional football. Thought someone sports science would have attacked it.

Strikes me that there's two things going on - one is a response to tiredness i.e. wear and tear injuries and the other is more random. My gut feeling is that the latter follows some sort of power law* - in a game, you'll have x % chance of seeing an injury that will cause a player to miss a certain number of weeks: the longer the lay-off, the less likely that severe an injury will occur. The other would depend on, I think, numbers of games played (given it would be nearly impossible to track training sessions) or games played per week.

*power law would be my first guess, I can also see an argument for something more Poisson-like.

There must be the data somewhere to extract out injuries and their durations. I'd keep the type of injury jotted down somewhere but that will get difficult to categorise.

Why do it? Because you'd be able to analyse whether the injuries are down to 'luck' or if there's something in the training routine that's breaking players. At the very least, it would be informative.