With the extraordinary circumstances of Motta taking a squad of 14 outfield players for the champions league match against Villa, it seems the right time to take a peek into our injury crisis.

Its easy to forget that we are focusing so much on Juve that we don’t take as much note of the squad availability of other clubs. Which I will try to take a look at below as well as refer to some data and findings of average incidents of injuries for the top european clubs. Also worth mentioning that we are currenty experiencing a lull of sorts, a sticky patch as some would say, with the early season wild enthusiasm giving way to shifty concerns and the temptation to revert to the cynical conclusions of the last few seasons of disappointment. A victory or three and we will be heralding the strength of this new dawn even in the face of losing so many players to the sick bay, a defeat/draw or few and more focus will appear seeking the reasons for this. We must try to have balance, though its impossible when our hearts are involved!

Juve medical ward –

Add in Luiz, which puts us at 8, Pogba would have us at 9, and should be included as he is basically finished as a footballer, hence we moved him on.

Current/season total injury lists for top Serie A first team squads

Juventus 9/9

Inter 1/4

Lazio 3/3

Napoli 0/1

AC Milan 3/5

Fiorentina 2/3

Atalanta 3/7

Will also add in Como who have sustained 10 injuries to players so far this season. Hardly helping the cause for Fabregas. I would suggest that Atalanta are similar to Juve in regards to their injuries suffered. It does not however, appear to have strongly impacted their form.

We are way out in the lead for unavailable players (of the top pack). Hard to know whether is due to sheer misfortune, Motta’s physical conditioning or poor purchases of players with a history of fitness issues.

Cabal –

Gonzalez

Milik –

Vlahovic-

Bremer-

Mckennie-

Adzic-

I will add in Pogba as he was part of this horror show also –

In the cases of Pogba and Milik, it was very clear that they came with serious, likely ongoing fitness issues. I would suggest that Gonzalez has a poor injury record. Though we will need to look into a study for a guide to what is the average days/games missed and frequency of injuries.

On average, a player sustained 2.0 injuries per season, resulting in 50 injuries per season in a team of 25.

An elite team with 25 players in the squad can expect about 50 injuries each season, half of them minor and causing absences of less than a week, but as many as eight or nine severe and causing absences of more than four weeks.

The average (mean) team at this level can expect eight severe injuries per season. On average, each player missed 37 days due to injury each season. This means that approximately 12% of the season is lost due to injury if we assume that a season lasts 300 days.

The injury incidence during matches was higher than in training.

In total, 4,483 injuries were registered, with 2,546 (57%) occurring during matches and 1,937 (43%) during training.

Results above taken from https://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:352677/FULLTEXT01  using the first team squads of 23 teams selected by UEFA as belonging to the 50 best European teams.

We have had a habit in recent history of signing players with fitness issues. Going back to Ramsey, also De Sciglio and of course Pogba. These could have been avoided though obviously the risk factor was involved in the way we were able to sign them on low fees (although huge wages in some cases).

Whilst our current crisis seems appalling, it may be down mainly to bad luck more than any other particular cause. What would. be interesting to look at would be the recovery times and recurrence of injuries, though I do not have the data for this.

My own inkling leans towards the idea that the medical centre may not have the best staff in place. I found the club quite appallingly mismanaged since 2018, with Agnelli placing too many incompetent people in key positions. Whether sporting directors or media teams, the pattern was clear and it stands to reason to presume that this lack of professionalism running rampant at the top may have stretched to impact all areas of the club, including the medical team.

Luca Stefanini – Head of medical

Joined us in 2018 and has progressed since from U19 to U17 to Youth to Senior squad. Was also the club doctor from 2003 to 2016.

Duccio Bravo – Sports scientist

Was the athletic coach at Pro Vercelli for a year 2007-8 before joining Juve as the athletic coach 2008-20, then to sports scientist in 2020.

Marco Freschi  – Club doctor

Was the club doctor at AC Milan from 2011-19 before joining Juve.

Simon Colinet – Athletic coach

Long experiened with various clubs in the french top flight before linking up with Motta in 2019, who he has been with since.

Other than the move from athletic coach to sports scientist of Bravo, which may simply be the fancy new name after earning new qualification, the credentials look fine for our medical centre and conditioning staff. And what is certainly clear is that some of them have been at the club during our golden era of success, in short they know what they are doing.

Will be curious to revisit at the end of the season to check how we match up with the averages as given by the report referenced earlier.

Presently, I will vaguely conclude that we are simply suffering from bad luck so far this season. Pogba and Milik were not signed by Giuntoli and I am no expert with ACL injuries, had assumed they cannot be predicted, though a few episodes of research have tried to determine otherwise they are not at all conclusive.

For now, we will just need to grin and bear it, soldier on and hope the crisis abates and we are able to enjoy the remainder of the season with a largely fit squad. Regardless of which, it is fair to assert the obvious, namely that injuries to key players especially can derail a campaign significantly.

The other question directly related to our current predicament was answered by Motta in his pre-match press conference. He explained that he doesn’t believe it valuable to bring players from the nextgen/U19 simply to make up numbers on the bench. Which has some merit, especially given the Nextgen are in dire straits presently and playing a crunch tie with Turris today. However, the U19 squad was also in the Midlands, where they earned a 0-2 victory of Villa U19s in the Uefa Youth league. Given they were already there and likely will be attending the game, what harm could it have done to include some of them on the bench for the senior tie?

Regardless, we can still enter the match with a strong starting XI. Will just have to hope we do not lose 4 outfield players to further setbacks and are forced to then deploy club mascot Pinsoglio as a makeshift  striker!

Forza juve

(Follow me on X here)

NB. You van keep up to date with injuries/suspensions in Serie A at these locations. Sometimes they differ slightly, updates applied at different times, yet they still serve as useful reference points to glean an idea who is currently suffering the most –

https://www.betinf.com/italy_injured.htm

https://www.sportsgambler.com/injuries/football/italy-serie-a/

https://www.transfermarkt.com/serie-a/verletztespieler/wettbewerb/IT1