Toon injury woes self-inflicted?
Posted on January 9th, 2010 | 164 Comments |
Last season we had important players with long lay-offs and niggling reoccurring injuries that hampered their contribution to the cause, and ultimately that played a big part in things going pear-shaped. But the injury jinx has been around longer than just last season, at a club that has seen more than it’s fair share of injury nightmares.
Of course one of those players who suffered badly from injury during his spell at St James’ was Irish international full-back, Stephen Carr who never transferred the promise he showed before signing for us. Possibly much of that was due to his in ability to stay fit and command a regular place. Despite a relatively low fee for his services, seventy-eight appearances in nearly three seasons was not a good return and he never looked fit enough to be a Premiership full-back.
However, he wasn’t the only one to suffer from injuries, and there were particularly specific injuries that a number of players seemed to suffer from including tendonitis and hamstring injuries. Fans questioned the training methods and the quality of the facilities available. Even when Sam Allardyce turned up with his forward-thinking and scientific approach, we still suffered badly. And Carr has gone on record to say that it wasn’t necessarily the players who were the problem.
“It was stop-start. Every year I had an injury.”
“They were silly injuries that took a long time to diagnose and then I was out longer than I should be. And the last year, when I pulled my hamstring four times, summed it up.”
“Basically it was a case of people not looking after you properly. Unfortunately you’re the one that looks like you’re injury-prone but the rehab was shocking. That’s the bottom line.”
Carr retired in December 2008, but was prised out of retirement over a year later and is now resurrecting his career at Birmingham City where he’s impressed with both his form and fitness, and playing an important role in the Premiership’s surprise package this season. Carr has actually started every game but one so far:
“This is the fittest I’ve felt for a long time and I don’t see why I can’t play for a lot more years,”
“I really love it here.”
I was never very impressed with Carr, not just because he was a slouch and a shadow of the player we thought we were getting from Spurs, but also because of his niggly and cynical approach to the game. But perhaps that was down to his need to adjust, as a Premiership player clearly a long way from being fit enough’?
Either way, his words are fairly damning and echo the accusations of supporters and experts who suggested that the training methods, staff, facilities and environment were not conducive to keeping the standard of fitness required at such a high level. Not a lot has changed in recent years, and yet this season we have less injuries and less reoccurences.
So is that down to a subtle change of methods, staff or the way the players follow the instructions and their attitude to actually getting rehabilitated and getting back out on the park?
NUFCBlog Author: bowburnmag
bowburnmag has written 234 articles on this blog.
This was the only news worthy thing i could find today. Was gonna do something about it but bowburn beat me to it :(
Ah well, another tinnie then.