Another international break, another fresh batch of injuries. Hamstring injuries themselves are up 96% on last season already, so with that said... What's causing it all?
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00:00 Hello everyone, Adam here from, oh God, I can't be jumping about today.
00:08 It's Adam here from 442, but I don't want to do my hamstring because it's becoming a
00:14 problem and that's what we're going to talk about today.
00:16 So what day are we on today?
00:18 Well, it is Tuesday, the 21st of November and as of Tuesday, the 21st of November, there
00:23 has been 53 hamstring injuries in the Premier League alone this season, which is up already
00:31 on last season by 26, which is a bit of a scary trend and correlation.
00:36 So we're going to look into why that could be happening.
00:40 And I think some of the reasons are quite obvious.
00:42 So what is it?
00:43 Well, it's a battle, I think, between something called money.
00:47 You may not have heard of it, but money, people, people at the top of football, the governing
00:52 bodies, they really like this thing called money and they want to make a lot of this
00:56 thing called money.
00:58 And then it's that versus player welfare, which maybe they care about a bit, but not
01:04 enough to want more money.
01:06 So you've got money versus player welfare.
01:09 Now you ask what brings in more money?
01:11 Well, simply put more games of football.
01:14 The Nations League, for example, has been introduced in the last two or three years.
01:18 Don't think anyone's particularly a fan of it.
01:20 I don't think anyone's tuning in.
01:21 The Nations League's on tonight.
01:22 I've got to watch it.
01:23 You know, end of the day, it's a glorified friendly and another thing that they can dress
01:27 up as a competition.
01:28 That'd be UEFA, of course, in this instance, but it's extra games that the players have
01:32 to play at the end of the day.
01:34 And although the last international break that is still going on, but has just really
01:38 passed now, has been qualifying games, we've seen quite a few injuries in those alone.
01:43 So Warren Zaire-Emery, who plays for PSG, 17 years old, having a fantastic season so
01:48 far, did his hamstring in a 14-0, a modest 14-0 win against Gibraltar, a game in which
01:54 you'd have thought the French players probably would have just took their foot off the gas
01:58 a bit.
01:59 Maybe they did, because to be fair, if they went full throttle, it probably would have
02:02 been 36-0.
02:03 But nonetheless, a 17-year-old doing his hamstring in a game like that is quite telling.
02:08 Gavi as well for Spain, the young Barcelona midfielder did his ACL, so not his hamstring,
02:12 but it's telling that he's had to be running to the ground as much as he has because of
02:16 the amount of games that Barcelona have on Spain as well.
02:19 You look at Pedri, it's a miracle he's alive and kicking, to be quite frank, the amount
02:23 of games that he's played in the last two or three years.
02:26 But Gavi's followed suit and it's all really caught up on him.
02:29 So it's quite worrying really that we're seeing it so frequently now.
02:32 It also looks like it's going to carry on as well, which is quite a sad truth, because
02:37 as these governing bodies want more money, they want more games.
02:41 And next season, the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are going to have 36
02:45 games in it with eight game group stages, which is just even more...
02:49 I mean, that's going to be played in the winter period.
02:51 So imagine now, but just another two club games wedged in there somehow.
02:55 I think in England, they're going to have to scrap the league up at this rate if this
02:58 is the way the game is going.
03:00 Not only that, but we've also seen the UEFA Conference League introduced recently as well,
03:03 which I suppose has some positives because it gives those teams like West Ham, for instance,
03:07 who won it last year, that European fairy tale.
03:09 I think it's great for the fans, but for the players as well, extra games, extra games
03:13 for a wider array of players now, not just the ones at the upper echelons of world football.
03:18 And of course, FIFA.
03:20 Yes, we all love FIFA, don't we?
03:21 The very honorable organization that is FIFA.
03:23 They are making the Club World Cup go from four teams to 32.
03:27 I don't have enough fingers.
03:29 32.
03:30 As of 2025, the Club World Cup is going to be in the USA and it's going to have 32 teams
03:34 in it.
03:35 So more games.
03:37 So let's turn our attention back fully to the Premier League.
03:40 There's been 56 hamstring injuries in the league so far.
03:43 This season, the previous high was in the 2020-2021 season, and that was just 40.
03:50 We're in November and it's 56.
03:52 This is a 96% increase on last season and a 55% increase on the last four seasons averaged
03:58 out.
03:59 So there's clearly a trend going on.
04:00 And I don't just think it's about the amount of games.
04:03 I think there could be something else at play as well.
04:06 VAR.
04:07 Yeah, yeah, we're talking about it again.
04:10 I know.
04:11 I know.
04:12 I'm just annoyed at the moment, mate.
04:14 Here we go again.
04:15 You might recall Tottenham playing Chelsea a couple of weeks back on Monday night, a
04:19 game in which Chelsea won 4-1 and a game in which Tottenham had nine men and a game in
04:24 which there was about 55 million VAR calls.
04:26 Yeah, you might remember the one.
04:27 It was pretty eventful.
04:29 But in that game, Micky van der Ven pulled up with a hamstring about 15 seconds after
04:35 a VAR call had finished and then play had resumed.
04:37 So it was about a four minute VAR call.
04:40 He'd been stood still.
04:41 So obviously he's been all in action.
04:43 His muscles were being used and then he stopped, slowed down.
04:47 The game's paused.
04:48 It's resumed and he's pulled up when a long ball's gone over the top.
04:52 This could be a real overlooked problem because if you think about it, the reason players
04:55 stretch and warm up ultimately before a football game is to get the blood flowing and make
05:00 sure that the muscles don't get torn or pulled during play when they're stretching for things
05:04 and putting full weight on the muscles.
05:07 If you've got VAR, and I know that the Tottenham Chelsea game was a slight anomaly because
05:11 of how many decisions there was, but there's still a fair amount in every Premier League
05:14 game.
05:15 The amount of stoppages you've got, you've got players who just stand still, stop moving
05:20 for three or four minutes and then have to resume again.
05:23 And it's that sort of infrequency of consistent action for 45 minutes, working the muscles
05:30 that could really be straining these hamstrings.
05:33 I think that the fact there's been a 96% increase in the last year, it can't just be down to
05:39 game time because these are fit lads at the end of the day and the likes of Frank Lampard,
05:45 Stephen Gerrard, these kind of players, years gone by, Wayne Rooney when he was younger,
05:49 they still used to play 60, 70 games a season when they were in their peak.
05:53 It's probably been a five, 10 game increase.
05:55 So I don't know if that's enough games to see a 96% increase in one year in the Premier
06:01 League.
06:02 It's just a mixture of quite a few variables and I think VAR could be one.
06:08 So as if VAR wasn't being debated enough, just for the mere existence of it at the moment
06:14 really, it could also be causing another issue.
06:19 So yeah, the lads in Stockley Park, go and deal with that one as well because you're
06:23 going to have the NHS on your case soon.
06:25 What's even more worrying for the Premier League is of course, in this country we love
06:29 and value, it's part of our culture, the Christmas period of football where it's just endless,
06:34 nonstop, 24/7 football on repeat, never ending, every day, midweek, weekend, you name it,
06:41 football is on.
06:42 Now, we're not even into that period yet and the Premier League have stated that no
06:45 club should have to go less than 60 hours between rest in between games.
06:50 So a 60 hour break between every fixture should be the bare minimum for a Premier League club.
06:55 However, between the 21st of December and the 2nd of January, Chelsea will only have
07:00 143.5 accumulated hours of rest between fixtures in that, what, 11 day period, 12 day period?
07:09 They've not got a lot of time to really recuperate, rest and recover and they've got three games
07:13 in that period.
07:14 And one final thing that's quite counterintuitive and ironic really is that I suppose it's not
07:19 the Premier League's fault or the owners of Premier League clubs, but with these governing
07:23 bodies introducing more games of football because they want more money, the Premier
07:27 League clubs and clubs around Europe as well at the top teams, your Madrid's, Barcelona's,
07:31 Bayern Munich's, they are all losing money on injury losses as well, being unable to
07:36 field these players.
07:37 So the statistic is, last season, all 20 Premier League clubs lost a combined total of 255.4
07:45 million on injury losses, which is a 70.8 million rise on the previous campaign before
07:52 that.
07:53 So it's getting worse.
07:54 The clubs are actually losing more money despite playing more games because they're losing
07:58 more players.
07:59 It's a convoluted mess and something needs to change.
08:02 So what's the viable solution?
08:03 Well, as it stands, Premier League clubs or the owners of Premier League clubs or any
08:08 club for that matter, haven't really sat down and discussed a solution with governing bodies
08:12 of leagues or, you know, UEFA and FIFA.
08:15 There's been no real discussions like that, no real parliamentary procedure to change
08:19 anything.
08:20 Guardiola did say two months ago, though, that players should perhaps start going on
08:24 strike just to reduce the game time.
08:27 If all the players banded together and refused to play, then that would make a statement.
08:31 And to be fair, I think that could be the most viable option.
08:35 Regardless of that, though, what is the fix?
08:38 You can let me know in the comments down below.
08:42 Should a player strike happen?
08:43 Should the League Cup be scrapped?
08:46 Is that competition losing its value enough to justify freeing up some space for more
08:51 Champions League group games?
08:54 More Champions League group games?
08:55 I don't know.
08:56 I don't know.
08:57 I don't know what the solution is, but it's clearly catching up on the players.
08:59 The evidence is there.
09:00 The data is there.
09:01 So something needs to change.
09:02 You can let me know what you think it should be.
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09:08 I will see you very, very soon.
09:10 Have a very, very lovely day.
09:12 Goodbye.
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