Injuries (Again!)

[Herbert Anchovy]

I mentioned on the match thread last night that the sheer scale of injuries that we've had to contend with this season is like nothing else that I've seen in my 40+ years of following the Rovers. It's been nothing short of a disaster how often we've been losing crucial players consistently throughout the season. I'm expecting bad news about Close at some point this week too.

Surely this is the primary reason why we're in the position that we're in right now?

It makes it impossible for the Manager to create and maintain a consistent and effective playing style, players are often asked to play outside of their best position and (unless you're Man City) it obviously lowers the overall capability of the team.

With the exception of a few teams in the Premier League, I'm convinced that every club in the country would really struggle with the level of injuries we've had to put up with. The Hammers and Spurs fans that I've spoken with have all said that their squads wouldn't be able to cope with similar situations, so I'm not sure how we can.

Of course, there's other factors to consider too; players out of form, some not good enough etc.. but as many people on this forum said at the start of the season - when we have our best team on the pitch we're a match for anyone in this division. How often has GM been able to select his best starting 11 so far? I'd wager no more than 5 times.

Maybe the Gypsy curse has returned with a vengeance!!

[Surrey Rover]

Some players are more prone to injuries than others. How many players did Bradford get injured last night?

In my opinion too many of our squad are simply not up to the rigorous demands of the fourth tier.

We need more players like Ironside. Last night he was slam dunked to the floor mid-way through the second half reminiscent of the challenge Steve Robert’s was on the end of at Millmoor at the end of 2005. Roberts left the field injured that afternoon and was never the same player again. Last night Ironside just picked himself up and got on with it. As he always does.

[Colin C No.3]

There’s a great deal of truth in what you say HA. Losing Miller right at the start of the season was a hammer blow. Can you imagine how many goals a Miller/Ironside pairing would have racked up in this division.

Then we sign Wood, an experienced no messing about central defender in the Rob Jones mould & we get one game out of him before he’s injured & out for months.

We’ve really missed Mitchell at LB too. He’s exactly the type of wing back suited to the way the manager wants to play football, he has pace, good with the ball at his feet, gets crosses into the box, has a great engine & can defend. But he’s been either injured or part of the ‘walking wounded’ with a place on the bench to limit his playing time & risk aggravating his injury when he’s not 100%.

Taylor the same. Took an age to recover from his injury (two & a half seasons or more) then is playing catch up to regain match fitness. He would have been an ideal ‘impact player’ to replace Molyneaux when he ran out of gas through games.

Faulkner, Anderson, Hurst the list goes on & on.

And now we may lose yet more important players after Brad City players stomped all over us last night on a pitch of glue.

And yet you still get people blaming the current demise on poor recruitment, the manager, the board.

Jeez.

[ravenrover]

Who is Mitchell?

[Alan Southstand]

Is he related to Maxwell?

[dickos1]

Some players are more prone to injuries than others. How many players did Bradford get injured last night?

In my opinion too many of our squad are simply not up to the rigorous demands of the fourth tier.

We need more players like Ironside. Last night he was slam dunked to the floor mid-way through the second half reminiscent of the challenge Steve Robert’s was on the end of at Millmoor at the end of 2005. Roberts left the field injured that afternoon and was never the same player again. Last night Ironside just picked himself up and got on with it. As he always does.

You can’t blame anything on those injuries last tonight other than very poor challenges

[idler]

I thought that when Carty was barged over the ball was probably over the line already. I was at the other side of the ground but it looked a totally unnecessary challenge and deserved a booking in my opinion.

[selby]

The one on Molineux was a deliberate stamp on the foot in front of the referee about six yards away, and the other two were dangerous play with no attempt to play the ball.
  Poor refereeing, and a deliberate ploy and tactics to unsettle our play.
  I hope that Bradford now go on a really good run of form and get on the cusp of a play off position, and we go there for the rearranged game, kick the sh*t out of them and wreck their Promotion hopes by injuries.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

People keep saying every club has injuries, which is true, but I've never known anything like this. Seemingly even worse this season when you think it couldn't vet any worse!

As pointed out, it has a huge impact, not only financially, but being able to find any consistency with selections, formations and planning ahead with recruitment.

One of the things I heard many moons ago about exercising the curse, is having at least three Scottish players in the team. Now for want of any better scientific solutions to address our woeful bad luck, why not??

I mean you couldn't make it up with the likes of Louis Marsh breaking his arm, then at the very time he's due to come back to us, he gets another injury. Then, one of our replacement loans, without even playing a full game yet, gets crocked having an altracation with a perimeter wall, Ffs.

Then of course, two of our few ever-presents this season, in Moly and Close, also get crocked in the same game.

You can do all the medical investigations you want, but it won't account for any of those impact injuries away from the Keepmoat pitch or training ground.

GazLaz, know of many replacement Scottish players available in your catalogue?

[graingrover]

I think the most injurious phenomenon is the attitude of some supporters who fail to recognise both the significant impact of this injury situation and the endeavours of the club to breach the gaping holes this has caused to the hull .

[danumdon]

(I'm not being ironic posting this after the above post from graingrover)

The point about the amount of injuries is correct, we do have an absurd amount of them on a far too regular basis.

The question that we all want answering is why is this so? we can't keep blaming bad luck and Gypsy curses, this can only stand so far what is it that makes us a club with an almost full roster of weaklings?

I think back to the best team i ever so saw playing for Rovers during SOD'd era, they were a team of midgets and looked like they could be blown away in seconds but they battled through and stuck to their football philosophy rules.

Fast forward to this lot, in a way physically a similar set of players but in no way do we seem to have the resilience and grit of SOD's team we are in effect a very lightweight squad and we don't have the redeeming feature of being a ball playing team.

Is it something to do with our strength and conditioning? is it our physio and recovery? is it the blood pitch? all things that we keep getting told have been looked at and addressed, but have they? We have players who have been out long term with particular injuries coming back looking like they have never seen the inside of a gym?

Im all for having a team of skill-full and resourceful players who can work on the hoof and adapt but this just looks to coincidental for me. We never, ever match up to any opponent, every side we play looks bigger, stronger and uglier, why?

Remember the sick bay squad that Dean Saunders inherited (the fag end of a great SOD side that we could not afford to keep on) how amazing was it to see players who went from terminally wounded to fit and rearing to go the following week? what does that tell us about the mentality of players who have been getting battered and bruised each week, the transformation was almost overnight instant.

What im saying is that a great deal of this is a mental issue thing, not just the injuries(a broken foot is a broken foot)but all the strains and pulls that a professional sportsman should deal with on a regular basis.

Its amazing how a team that's playing well and wining matches hardly ever have the same type of "injuries"

Id be looking at appointing a psychiatrist  that knows their sh*t. We desperately need it!

[Chris Black come back]

We have a very sizeable number of players out of contract this summer. There is a real opportunity to reshape the squad and if we do not go down this season, we start in August with a squad that is overwhelmingly then full of players that McCann has brought to the club or has taken the decision to retain and give new deals. If we are in the shit this time next January then he has no excuse whatsoever. Now though, let’s just get this horror show over and aim for 22nd.

[drfcsteve]

I think there’s two issues. First is who we sign. The players available to us (a league two team who most of the time don’t want to pay a fee) will likely have an injury history and have probably been let go by other teams for that reason.

Second is attitude. I was talking to a former premier league assistant physio, who was saying that there are players who will play through anything even when they probably shouldn’t (Ironside), and then there are players who will refuse to play unless they deem themselves to be 100% fit, which in reality will never be the case in professional sport. In my opinion we have too many of the latter. And they won’t be rushing themselves back to play in a team getting tanked every week.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

(I'm not being ironic posting this after the above post from graingrover)

The point about the amount of injuries is correct, we do have an absurd amount of them on a far too regular basis.

The question that we all want answering is why is this so? we can't keep blaming bad luck and Gypsy curses, this can only stand so far what is it that makes us a club with an almost full roster of weaklings?

I think back to the best team i ever so saw playing for Rovers during SOD'd era, they were a team of midgets and looked like they could be blown away in seconds but they battled through and stuck to their football philosophy rules.

Fast forward to this lot, in a way physically a similar set of players but in no way do we seem to have the resilience and grit of SOD's team we are in effect a very lightweight squad and we don't have the redeeming feature of being a ball playing team.

Is it something to do with our strength and conditioning? is it our physio and recovery? is it the blood pitch? all things that we keep getting told have been looked at and addressed, but have they? We have players who have been out long term with particular injuries coming back looking like they have never seen the inside of a gym?

Im all for having a team of skill-full and resourceful players who can work on the hoof and adapt but this just looks to coincidental for me. We never, ever match up to any opponent, every side we play looks bigger, stronger and uglier, why?

Remember the sick bay squad that Dean Saunders inherited (the fag end of a great SOD side that we could not afford to keep on) how amazing was it to see players who went from terminally wounded to fit and rearing to go the following week? what does that tell us about the mentality of players who have been getting battered and bruised each week, the transformation was almost overnight instant.

What im saying is that a great deal of this is a mental issue thing, not just the injuries(a broken foot is a broken foot)but all the strains and pulls that a professional sportsman should deal with on a regular basis.

Its amazing how a team that's playing well and wining matches hardly ever have the same type of "injuries"

Id be looking at appointing a psychiatrist  that knows their sh*t. We desperately need it!

SO'D had his fair share too, Billy more than once. Brighton took out Billy and Hayter and the following game Ryan Mason. During SO'Ds time we also had a string of Hernia ops, so much so I suggested at the time we send the players to Hernia's R Us!

The man mountain Rob Jones was unavailable to us for a loooong time, and again, we might question whether we sign injury prone players....Steve Brooker amongst others, all under JRs watch, so it's not a new phenomenon however, in those days, we could sign short term loans to cover the gaps. Perhaps that's why it seems more acute now, even though I still think we're suffering disproportionately at the moment.

I'm not dismissing what you've said, as at times I jokingly say the players would be more sturdy on a diet of steak & Guiness and I've no doubt there's a psychological element too.

[scawsby steve]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

[TonySoprano]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Dead right

[NickDRFC]

I mentioned on the match thread last night that the sheer scale of injuries that we've had to contend with this season is like nothing else that I've seen in my 40+ years of following the Rovers. It's been nothing short of a disaster how often we've been losing crucial players consistently throughout the season. I'm expecting bad news about Close at some point this week too.

Surely this is the primary reason why we're in the position that we're in right now?

It makes it impossible for the Manager to create and maintain a consistent and effective playing style, players are often asked to play outside of their best position and (unless you're Man City) it obviously lowers the overall capability of the team.

With the exception of a few teams in the Premier League, I'm convinced that every club in the country would really struggle with the level of injuries we've had to put up with. The Hammers and Spurs fans that I've spoken with have all said that their squads wouldn't be able to cope with similar situations, so I'm not sure how we can.

Of course, there's other factors to consider too; players out of form, some not good enough etc.. but as many people on this forum said at the start of the season - when we have our best team on the pitch we're a match for anyone in this division. How often has GM been able to select his best starting 11 so far? I'd wager no more than 5 times.

Maybe the Gypsy curse has returned with a vengeance!!

Spurs are a bad example by way of comparison. Their dominating midfielder has barely played all season whilst the other first choice midfielders have been absent for long stretches, injuries to centre halves have meant playing full backs there a lot of the time and they’ve been missing their playmaker for half the season. Yet the reserves have come in and still got results, and more importantly they have stepped up and played in the way that the manager wants them to because his time on the training ground and coaching methods have been effective. I’m sure we’ve had more injuries in terms of sheer numbers but the way the respective replacement players have come in has been profoundly different.

[ss1953]

I wonder if the lack of Roy Keane style enforcer has allowed other teams think that they can bully us and get away with it.
Bradford's players last night just kicked or shoved us off the pitch and there was no retribution.

All three injuries should have been yellow cards at least, but weak ref lets them continually get away with it.

I haven't seen us show other teams that they wont get away with it this season.

[Chris Black come back]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Agree with most of this. People need to get away from the budget issue. I think even Gavin is now starting to hide behind this. Yes budgets were clearly cut but in no scenario whatsoever should we be the 3rd worst club in the 92. Terrible decisions have been made by the club leadership on what to do with that budget, who to appoint as manager, and what direction to take the club. People might want more money but god only knows how much of that we would waste if the same terrible decisions keep being made. We don’t have a huge support but it is decent size and the support (bar the Schofield episode which was bad) has been patient, reasonable and supportive (including financially). This total catastrophic failure is on the club leadership. They’ve taken us down here with their decision-making.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

No, we're not saying it's all down to injuries but it's a major factor that has compounded on top of the other issues which also need to be addressed.

Where we are at is a culmination of alot of things, so equally, folk shouldn't be blaming one person, as some like to do..

But this thread is about injuries, and not another to be hijacked when there's plenty about the other issues.

[Herbert Anchovy]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Chill out fella and read my OP again. You’ll notice that I make it absolutely clear that there are other issues at play in addition to our injuries. However I wanted to emphasise the injury issue…hence the title of the thread…injuries.

The gypsy curse was a bit tongue in cheek but maybe that bypassed you.

[scawsby steve]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Chill out fella and read my OP again. You’ll notice that I make it absolutely clear that there are other issues at play in addition to our injuries. However I wanted to emphasise the injury issue…hence the title of the thread…injuries.

The gypsy curse was a bit tongue in cheek but maybe that bypassed you.

My post wasn't aimed at you, Herbert, it was aimed at someone's comments that suggested that no-one should be criticising "recruitment, managers, and the board" for our demise, which to me are the main reasons for the last 3 years.

Of course, injuries haven't helped, and we do have a lot of bad luck with them.

[Herbert Anchovy]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Chill out fella and read my OP again. You’ll notice that I make it absolutely clear that there are other issues at play in addition to our injuries. However I wanted to emphasise the injury issue…hence the title of the thread…injuries.

The gypsy curse was a bit tongue in cheek but maybe that bypassed you.

My post wasn't aimed at you, Herbert, it was aimed at someone's comments that suggested that no-one should be criticising "recruitment, managers, and the board" for our demise, which to me are the main reasons for the last 3 years.

Of course, injuries haven't helped, and we do have a lot of bad luck with them.

Sorry SS - I misinterpreted your post. Apologies.

[GazLaz]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Agree with most of this. People need to get away from the budget issue. I think even Gavin is now starting to hide behind this. Yes budgets were clearly cut but in no scenario whatsoever should we be the 3rd worst club in the 92. Terrible decisions have been made by the club leadership on what to do with that budget, who to appoint as manager, and what direction to take the club. People might want more money but god only knows how much of that we would waste if the same terrible decisions keep being made. We don’t have a huge support but it is decent size and the support (bar the Schofield episode which was bad) has been patient, reasonable and supportive (including financially). This total catastrophic failure is on the club leadership. They’ve taken us down here with their decision-making.

I agree. B, B & B have to take all the blame. They own the club. What’s happening now is an absolute horror show and they are writing the script.

[ncRover]

We have one of the biggest squads in the league!

The extent we talk about injuries kills any sort of winning mentality at the club just as much as the injuries.

Subconsciously, the players won’t feel any positive expectations on them if we keep up the excuses.

The Sutton pre-match interview will be “injuries boohoo poor us”.

Then people wonder why we are less than the sum of our parts.

Northampton got promoted with an injury crisis that went in to double figures last year.

[Chris Black come back]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Agree with most of this. People need to get away from the budget issue. I think even Gavin is now starting to hide behind this. Yes budgets were clearly cut but in no scenario whatsoever should we be the 3rd worst club in the 92. Terrible decisions have been made by the club leadership on what to do with that budget, who to appoint as manager, and what direction to take the club. People might want more money but god only knows how much of that we would waste if the same terrible decisions keep being made. We don’t have a huge support but it is decent size and the support (bar the Schofield episode which was bad) has been patient, reasonable and supportive (including financially). This total catastrophic failure is on the club leadership. They’ve taken us down here with their decision-making.

I agree. B, B & B have to take all the blame. They own the club. What’s happening now is an absolute horror show and they are writing the script.

Last 10 years we have only gone forward twice. In 17/18 when we finished 15th in League One after being in League Two the previous season, and in 18/19 when McCann had us finishing 6th in League One after finishing 15th the season before. You can probably discount the first one as we had been in a lower league the season before. Every other season we have gone backwards.

[NickDRFC]

We're a city club, with a great stadium, great training facilities, millionaire owners, and a financially solid base. Yet we're the 3rd worse team in the entire EFL, and people are coming on here and saying it's all down to nothing else but injuries, as though other clubs don't get them.

For the last 3 years there's been a foul stench of failure that's permeated through every part of our club, through lousy players, lousy managers, lousy coaching teams, and lousy decisions and lies from the board. But yeah, it's all because of injuries and gypsy curses.

Jesus wept.

Agree with most of this. People need to get away from the budget issue. I think even Gavin is now starting to hide behind this. Yes budgets were clearly cut but in no scenario whatsoever should we be the 3rd worst club in the 92. Terrible decisions have been made by the club leadership on what to do with that budget, who to appoint as manager, and what direction to take the club. People might want more money but god only knows how much of that we would waste if the same terrible decisions keep being made. We don’t have a huge support but it is decent size and the support (bar the Schofield episode which was bad) has been patient, reasonable and supportive (including financially). This total catastrophic failure is on the club leadership. They’ve taken us down here with their decision-making.

I agree. B, B & B have to take all the blame. They own the club. What’s happening now is an absolute horror show and they are writing the script.

Last 10 years we have only gone forward twice. In 17/18 when we finished 15th in League One after being in League Two the previous season, and in 18/19 when McCann had us finishing 6th in League One after finishing 15th the season before. You can probably discount the first one as we had been in a lower league the season before. Every other season we have gone backwards.

That’s an interesting and frankly truly depressing way of looking at it. One thing I would say though is that we didn’t go backwards the season after the play offs in the covid curtailed season. We didn’t really go forwards either but in what was a very strange season we stood exactly still. Under McCann the season before we earned 73 points from 46 games, which works out as 1.59 points per game. Under Moore we were well set when the rug was pulled from under us, with 54 points from 34 games which works out as…1.59 points per game (even slightly higher than the season before if you look to 3dp). Obviously we didn’t make the playoffs so it was a regression of sorts but would be harsh to say that we moved backwards.

[Metalmicky]

Is there any news on our injured players from Tuesday night yet...?

[In the box]

How many players are out now if these are to be included and is it here funds to help the team stave off a possible relegation battle if things get any worse on the injury front .

[steve@dcfd]

Injured as known
Lawlor Anderson? Faulkner Long? Close Westbrooke Molyneux Coaty Miller Lavery Ravenhill
Leaving at least 19 fit players.
2 gk.    4 fb.   3Chs. 5 midfield 5 forwards