I imagine Taylor was "managed" yesterday, rather than having anything serious.
Yes. The only likely explanation of Holden’s comment. Poor bloke is trying to bluff with a very poor hand. If Miles, let alone Aneke, were getting close, they’d release shots of him training. As it is, Curbs bemoaned the complete lack of updates about either. Worrying in Miles case.
Do other clubs at our level constantly have this volume of injuries?
That’s the big question, and it is not easy for fans to find out. However Methven seems to think we have a problem; and as I said earlier, last year before the Ipswich home game Greg Stubley said their back “six” had been more or less unchanged the whole season up to that point. I would think the last time we had that stability was back in Chris Powell’s title winning season. Alhough I recall the first half of the 18-19 season was quite OK too, surprisingly. Bielik got injured but apart from that we were stable. The problem was the squad was so thin. So naturally Duchatelet sold Karlan Grant in the window and left Bow to sign Josh Parker. But those examples suggest a strong correlation between a stable team and a winning team. Who knew?
Has anyone asked Holden, the medical team, or anyone, why we have so many injuries every year, it can't just be bad luck or coincidence. It's getting beyond ridiculous, despite supposedly improving the backroom staff?
Have we improved the backroom staff though?
Do we have the right people involved (Like that Danny Murphy bloke back in 2019/20) who is ensuring that players aren't pushing their bodies beyond the limit, either because they dont know any better... Or because they don't want to, in case it ruins their place in the team and potentially their career.
If the adequate staff arent there, whats the difference between a Footballer pushing themselves too much, and some average bloke going out running every evening...
The latter can think he's looking after himself, staying fit and healthy etc. but if he's not warming up / down properly, or doesn't realise that going out every night with no breaks is doing more damage... Who is around to advise that casual runner to ease off?
Was it TS who said we’d improved the Medical Team and did he take them with him when he left or did I imagine that?
Seem to remember they got a device that detected hamstring injuries before they happened - Equally wonder if any of them left, given we have had a bit of an exodus of staff under TS
Several of the current injuries are down to impacts. Not possible to prevent in a contact sport.
True. However, Egbo certainly isn't, and based on Terry''s radio commentary, neither is Chin's. We all know about Aneke. Jones, Asiimwe and Fraser?
Charlie Methven during his interview went off -record to go into detail about the problem. As he said,"It's no good spending money on good players if you do not keep them fit". He went off-record because he was speaking about a department of a business he did not own at the time. Last night (noting that he had been at Newport) I wrote to remind him of what he'd said and suggested that it might be a good time to go public, if indeed they recognise the need to invest in that department. It was certainly what he indicated as a priority in the interview, and of course I have a record of the whole thing.
It’s interesting that he told you that Prague, but I do wonder how much truth there is to it and whether he is saying things the fans want to hear, but are ultimately difficult to scrutinise. I’m quite sure that he reads these and other message boards (morning Charlie) to get a gist of what the fans want, which in turn helps him to say the right things. However when you look at the club’s website there are hardly any details of the people they employ and the only adverts for vacancies in the medical department are for an academy doctor and a physiotherapist. The salary for the doc’s job is not given, but the pay for the physiotherapist is lower than a newly qualified physiotherapist would get working in the NHS with outer London waiting. Now the club might point out that there is high demand for these posts working in professional football. I would say however if you want to be professional you need to act professional and pay proper wages.
Forgive my cynicism and i hope there is a lot going on behind the scenes to improve in this area. But I now take the view of only judging owners by what can been seen not what they say.
Good points @Gary Poole. In addition to having low pay-rates, I suspect many of the jobs advertised by Charlton are not full time, thus compounding the issue.
I think it is also telling that an interim Commercial Manager was appointed immediately, presumably to have someone with relevant experience look at ways of improving the income stream. Yet the Director of Performance, who would presumably have things like our injury record and what to do about it as part of their remit, is - 3 weeks later - still "to be confirmed", and no interim measures! To me, this reveals their priorities.
If, as @PragueAddick says, Methven had identified back in May that fitness, etc., was an important area to tackle, why the delay in getting started? It has the potential to be an extremely costly mistake, both in £s and points.
Do other clubs at our level constantly have this volume of injuries?
That’s the big question, and it is not easy for fans to find out. However Methven seems to think we have a problem; and as I said earlier, last year before the Ipswich home game Greg Stubley said their back “six” had been more or less unchanged the whole season up to that point. I would think the last time we had that stability was back in Chris Powell’s title winning season. Alhough I recall the first half of the 18-19 season was quite OK too, surprisingly. Bielik got injured but apart from that we were stable. The problem was the squad was so thin. So naturally Duchatelet sold Karlan Grant in the window and left Bow to sign Josh Parker. But those examples suggest a strong correlation between a stable team and a winning team. Who knew?
Was that when we did all of our business early and gave ourselves plenty of time to blood the new recruits both tactically and physically. Allowing them to be in excellent condition when the season started?
Good points @Gary Poole. In addition to having low pay-rates, I suspect many of the jobs advertised by Charlton are not full time, thus compounding the issue.
I think it is also telling that an interim Commercial Manager was appointed immediately, presumably to have someone with relevant experience look at ways of improving the income stream. Yet the Director of Performance, who would presumably have things like our injury record and what to do about it as part of their remit, is - 3 weeks later - still "to be confirmed", and no interim measures! To me, this reveals their priorities.
If, as @PragueAddick says, Methven had identified back in May that fitness, etc., was an important area to tackle, why the delay in getting started? It has the potential to be an extremely costly mistake, both in £s and points.
Why do some presume that various targets or additions to specific areas of expertise are just sitting on their sofas waiting for a call?
Do other clubs at our level constantly have this volume of injuries?
That’s the big question, and it is not easy for fans to find out. However Methven seems to think we have a problem; and as I said earlier, last year before the Ipswich home game Greg Stubley said their back “six” had been more or less unchanged the whole season up to that point. I would think the last time we had that stability was back in Chris Powell’s title winning season. Alhough I recall the first half of the 18-19 season was quite OK too, surprisingly. Bielik got injured but apart from that we were stable. The problem was the squad was so thin. So naturally Duchatelet sold Karlan Grant in the window and left Bow to sign Josh Parker. But those examples suggest a strong correlation between a stable team and a winning team. Who knew?
Was that when we did all of our business early and gave ourselves plenty of time to blood the new recruits both tactically and physically. Allowing them to be in excellent condition when the season started?
The possibiliity that CM was just spinning me a line has of course bothered me (and the Head of Dossiers) from the moment the interview finished, because it was so aligned with how I saw it. But I still tend to give him a break on this. I’ve just gone back to remind myself of what he said. Overall he asserts that he has a superb overview of the various cost lines in EFL clubs because he knows so many people in these clubs. Actually it would only take one of them to pass him a copy of the EFL’s anonymised P&L breakdown by division which all clubs agree to pool. That analysis, which clubs can use to set wage budgets based on division benchmarks, won’t show anything about injuries but it probably does show the benchmark for spending on “performance”. And I have the impression he’s quite good at collecting and analysing this sort of data. He’s a horses man, and if you are serious, you study a lot of comparative data. And he threw something at me that I never knew nor have seen discussed here - that the Academy suffered a high incidence of injuries. He quite rightly asks the same question as of the first team. What’s the point in spending on having “the best Academy in League One” if we then cannot keep them fit, especially as mentally long injuries can take a heavy toll on such young players. He also indicated that Andy Scott would be the guy to oversee the improvements there. That reasonably means that Scott would want to choose a Performance Director. Well as we know, there was a delay before Scott himself could take up his position, so that’s a reason why we have not made such an appointment yet; and for another reason, look no further than @sillav nitram post above. Good people are hard to find, and harder to move. And the best will be hoovered up by the FAPL clubs. I think we have to give him a break for a little while re the improvement in that area…and if we suspect back-sliding, well, he’s on record, and he knows it.
The possibiliity that CM was just spinning me a line has of course bothered me (and the Head of Dossiers) from the moment the interview finished, because it was so aligned with how I saw it. But I still tend to give him a break on this. I’ve just gone back to remind myself of what he said. Overall he asserts that he has a superb overview of the various cost lines in EFL clubs because he knows so many people in these clubs. Actually it would only take one of them to pass him a copy of the EFL’s anonymised P&L breakdown by division which all clubs agree to pool. That analysis, which clubs can use to set wage budgets based on division benchmarks, won’t show anything about injuries but it probably does show the benchmark for spending on “performance”. And I have the impression he’s quite good at collecting and analysing this sort of data. He’s a horses man, and if you are serious, you study a lot of comparative data. And he threw something at me that I never knew nor have seen discussed here - that the Academy suffered a high incidence of injuries. He quite rightly asks the same question as of the first team. What’s the point in spending on having “the best Academy in League One” if we then cannot keep them fit, especially as mentally long injuries can take a heavy toll on such young players. He also indicated that Andy Scott would be the guy to oversee the improvements there. That reasonably means that Scott would want to choose a Performance Director. Well as we know, there was a delay before Scott himself could take up his position, so that’s a reason why we have not made such an appointment yet; and for another reason, look no further than @sillav nitram post above. Good people are hard to find, and harder to move. And the best will be hoovered up by the FAPL clubs. I think we have to give him a break for a little while re the improvement in that area…and if we suspect back-sliding, well, he’s on record, and he knows it.
That’s all very well and I hope it is true. But I would argue if you want to employ a full time physiotherapist based in London with the necessary experience in sports injury treatment and rehabilitation to improve on a poor past injury record then you should be looking at spending more than the advertised £28-£30k. As you point out good people are hard to find and hard to move, but they won’t apply for jobs paying peanuts.
The possibiliity that CM was just spinning me a line has of course bothered me (and the Head of Dossiers) from the moment the interview finished, because it was so aligned with how I saw it. But I still tend to give him a break on this. I’ve just gone back to remind myself of what he said. Overall he asserts that he has a superb overview of the various cost lines in EFL clubs because he knows so many people in these clubs. Actually it would only take one of them to pass him a copy of the EFL’s anonymised P&L breakdown by division which all clubs agree to pool. That analysis, which clubs can use to set wage budgets based on division benchmarks, won’t show anything about injuries but it probably does show the benchmark for spending on “performance”. And I have the impression he’s quite good at collecting and analysing this sort of data. He’s a horses man, and if you are serious, you study a lot of comparative data. And he threw something at me that I never knew nor have seen discussed here - that the Academy suffered a high incidence of injuries. He quite rightly asks the same question as of the first team. What’s the point in spending on having “the best Academy in League One” if we then cannot keep them fit, especially as mentally long injuries can take a heavy toll on such young players. He also indicated that Andy Scott would be the guy to oversee the improvements there. That reasonably means that Scott would want to choose a Performance Director. Well as we know, there was a delay before Scott himself could take up his position, so that’s a reason why we have not made such an appointment yet; and for another reason, look no further than @sillav nitram post above. Good people are hard to find, and harder to move. And the best will be hoovered up by the FAPL clubs. I think we have to give him a break for a little while re the improvement in that area…and if we suspect back-sliding, well, he’s on record, and he knows it.
That’s all very well and I hope it is true. But I would argue if you want to employ a full time physiotherapist based in London with the necessary experience in sports injury treatment and rehabilitation to improve on a poor past injury record then you should be looking at spending more than the advertised £28-£30k. As you point out good people are hard to find and hard to move, but they won’t apply for jobs paying peanuts.
The possibiliity that CM was just spinning me a line has of course bothered me (and the Head of Dossiers) from the moment the interview finished, because it was so aligned with how I saw it. But I still tend to give him a break on this. I’ve just gone back to remind myself of what he said. Overall he asserts that he has a superb overview of the various cost lines in EFL clubs because he knows so many people in these clubs. Actually it would only take one of them to pass him a copy of the EFL’s anonymised P&L breakdown by division which all clubs agree to pool. That analysis, which clubs can use to set wage budgets based on division benchmarks, won’t show anything about injuries but it probably does show the benchmark for spending on “performance”. And I have the impression he’s quite good at collecting and analysing this sort of data. He’s a horses man, and if you are serious, you study a lot of comparative data. And he threw something at me that I never knew nor have seen discussed here - that the Academy suffered a high incidence of injuries. He quite rightly asks the same question as of the first team. What’s the point in spending on having “the best Academy in League One” if we then cannot keep them fit, especially as mentally long injuries can take a heavy toll on such young players. He also indicated that Andy Scott would be the guy to oversee the improvements there. That reasonably means that Scott would want to choose a Performance Director. Well as we know, there was a delay before Scott himself could take up his position, so that’s a reason why we have not made such an appointment yet; and for another reason, look no further than @sillav nitram post above. Good people are hard to find, and harder to move. And the best will be hoovered up by the FAPL clubs. I think we have to give him a break for a little while re the improvement in that area…and if we suspect back-sliding, well, he’s on record, and he knows it.
That’s all very well and I hope it is true. But I would argue if you want to employ a full time physiotherapist based in London with the necessary experience in sports injury treatment and rehabilitation to improve on a poor past injury record then you should be looking at spending more than the advertised £28-£30k. As you point out good people are hard to find and hard to move, but they won’t apply for jobs paying peanuts.
Absolutely but he seemed to be implying that it was an area for higher investment.
Do other clubs at our level constantly have this volume of injuries?
That’s the big question, and it is not easy for fans to find out. However Methven seems to think we have a problem; and as I said earlier, last year before the Ipswich home game Greg Stubley said their back “six” had been more or less unchanged the whole season up to that point. I would think the last time we had that stability was back in Chris Powell’s title winning season. Alhough I recall the first half of the 18-19 season was quite OK too, surprisingly. Bielik got injured but apart from that we were stable. The problem was the squad was so thin. So naturally Duchatelet sold Karlan Grant in the window and left Bow to sign Josh Parker. But those examples suggest a strong correlation between a stable team and a winning team. Who knew?
Was that when we did all of our business early and gave ourselves plenty of time to blood the new recruits both tactically and physically. Allowing them to be in excellent condition when the season started?
Yes and that is obviously ideal. However let's not think that is easy. Even big clubs like Liverpool and Chelsea have failed to do that this year. Agents like to hang out for better terms and counter offers.
We can look at the medical side, but some players are more prone to injuries than others. CBT isn't injured but he is prone for instance. Dobbo is far away from being prone. Leaburn seems a bit prone though it is still early days. Alfie May doesn't look prone. All players can get injured of course, but if you have more prone ones you will probably get more injuries.
The boss confirmed Miles Leaburn (ankle) and Chuks Aneke (calf) have both stepped up their respective recoveries.
He said: “They’re both back on the grass which is good to see, I have to say. They’re not with the first team yet; they’re with the sports science team and they’re going through their rehabilitation.
“The gym work will obviously continue but they’re now getting their boots on, getting a touch of the ball and working on the fitness side of things out on the grass. They’re both progressing well.”
Holden also provided an update on the fitness of Scott Fraser and Tyreece Campbell.
“Scotty unfortunately picked up a calf injury right at the end of the first game against Leyton Orient. Having scanned that it wasn’t too severe, but he’ll certainly be missing for a number of weeks.”
“We’re hoping Tyreece won’t be out as long as Scotty. I’m disappointed for Tyreece. He came on as an early sub for Richard Chin who was injured at Newport and then Tyreece got himself injured. It’s a contact injury - he just rolled his ankle in a tackle. We’re hoping that one won’t be too bad, but he’ll certainly be unavailable for the next few games at least.”
The boss confirmed Miles Leaburn (ankle) and Chuks Aneke (calf) have both stepped up their respective recoveries.
He said: “They’re both back on the grass which is good to see, I have to say. They’re not with the first team yet; they’re with the sports science team and they’re going through their rehabilitation.
“The gym work will obviously continue but they’re now getting their boots on, getting a touch of the ball and working on the fitness side of things out on the grass. They’re both progressing well.”
Holden also provided an update on the fitness of Scott Fraser and Tyreece Campbell.
“Scotty unfortunately picked up a calf injury right at the end of the first game against Leyton Orient. Having scanned that it wasn’t too severe, but he’ll certainly be missing for a number of weeks.”
“We’re hoping Tyreece won’t be out as long as Scotty. I’m disappointed for Tyreece. He came on as an early sub for Richard Chin who was injured at Newport and then Tyreece got himself injured. It’s a contact injury - he just rolled his ankle in a tackle. We’re hoping that one won’t be too bad, but he’ll certainly be unavailable for the next few games at least.”
The boss confirmed Miles Leaburn (ankle) and Chuks Aneke (calf) have both stepped up their respective recoveries.
He said: “They’re both back on the grass which is good to see, I have to say. They’re not with the first team yet; they’re with the sports science team and they’re going through their rehabilitation.
“The gym work will obviously continue but they’re now getting their boots on, getting a touch of the ball and working on the fitness side of things out on the grass. They’re both progressing well.”
Holden also provided an update on the fitness of Scott Fraser and Tyreece Campbell.
“Scotty unfortunately picked up a calf injury right at the end of the first game against Leyton Orient. Having scanned that it wasn’t too severe, but he’ll certainly be missing for a number of weeks.”
“We’re hoping Tyreece won’t be out as long as Scotty. I’m disappointed for Tyreece. He came on as an early sub for Richard Chin who was injured at Newport and then Tyreece got himself injured. It’s a contact injury - he just rolled his ankle in a tackle. We’re hoping that one won’t be too bad, but he’ll certainly be unavailable for the next few games at least.”
The boss confirmed Miles Leaburn (ankle) and Chuks Aneke (calf) have both stepped up their respective recoveries.
He said: “They’re both back on the grass which is good to see, I have to say. They’re not with the first team yet; they’re with the sports science team and they’re going through their rehabilitation.
“The gym work will obviously continue but they’re now getting their boots on, getting a touch of the ball and working on the fitness side of things out on the grass. They’re both progressing well.”
Holden also provided an update on the fitness of Scott Fraser and Tyreece Campbell.
“Scotty unfortunately picked up a calf injury right at the end of the first game against Leyton Orient. Having scanned that it wasn’t too severe, but he’ll certainly be missing for a number of weeks.”
“We’re hoping Tyreece won’t be out as long as Scotty. I’m disappointed for Tyreece. He came on as an early sub for Richard Chin who was injured at Newport and then Tyreece got himself injured. It’s a contact injury - he just rolled his ankle in a tackle. We’re hoping that one won’t be too bad, but he’ll certainly be unavailable for the next few games at least.”
Comments
Forgive my cynicism and i hope there is a lot going on behind the scenes to improve in this area. But I now take the view of only judging owners by what can been seen not what they say.
I think it is also telling that an interim Commercial Manager was appointed immediately, presumably to have someone with relevant experience look at ways of improving the income stream. Yet the Director of Performance, who would presumably have things like our injury record and what to do about it as part of their remit, is - 3 weeks later - still "to be confirmed", and no interim measures! To me, this reveals their priorities.
If, as @PragueAddick says, Methven had identified back in May that fitness, etc., was an important area to tackle, why the delay in getting started? It has the potential to be an extremely costly mistake, both in £s and points.
I think we have to give him a break for a little while re the improvement in that area…and if we suspect back-sliding, well, he’s on record, and he knows it.
The boss confirmed Miles Leaburn (ankle) and Chuks Aneke (calf) have both stepped up their respective recoveries.
He said: “They’re both back on the grass which is good to see, I have to say. They’re not with the first team yet; they’re with the sports science team and they’re going through their rehabilitation.
“The gym work will obviously continue but they’re now getting their boots on, getting a touch of the ball and working on the fitness side of things out on the grass. They’re both progressing well.”
Holden also provided an update on the fitness of Scott Fraser and Tyreece Campbell.
“Scotty unfortunately picked up a calf injury right at the end of the first game against Leyton Orient. Having scanned that it wasn’t too severe, but he’ll certainly be missing for a number of weeks.”
“We’re hoping Tyreece won’t be out as long as Scotty. I’m disappointed for Tyreece. He came on as an early sub for Richard Chin who was injured at Newport and then Tyreece got himself injured. It’s a contact injury - he just rolled his ankle in a tackle. We’re hoping that one won’t be too bad, but he’ll certainly be unavailable for the next few games at least.”
https://www.charltonafc.com/news/holden-previews-bristol-rovers-visit