Injuries are a problem, not an excuse

The baffling arguments that 12 injuries are just an excuse needs to end (Article by The Score)

One of the more baffling arguments I’ve heard or issue I’ve seen ignored recently when judging Chelsea’s form is the injury issue. It’s been called an “excuse” or “no justification” for the results or performances, which genuinely has to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

It feels like people are normalising our injury issues to the extent where the manager has to accept them and succeed despite them - which is utter nonsense, because I struggle to see what manager would be able to succeed given the number of injuries we currently have.

I did some research on Chelsea’s injury record - including absences through COVID/illness, since 2020, using both Howden’s Mens European Injury Index and the Premier Injuries website.

Here’s how it breaks down with Chelsea’s injuries:

• 20/21 season: 55 injuries (2nd worst in Europe)

• 21/22 season: 97 injuries (worst in Europe)

• 22/23 season: 48 injuries (worst in the PL)

So in the last 3 seasons, we’ve had 200 injuries. That’s almost certainly the worst in Europe in that period.

This season too, we’ve already had the following players miss games or match-day squad due to injury:

Marcus Bettinelli

Benoit Badiashile

Wesley Fofana

Trevoh Chalobah

Reece James

Marc Cucurella

Moises Caicedo

Romeo Lavia

Carney Chukwuemeka

Christopher Nkunku

Mykhailo Mudryk

Noni Madueke

Armando Broja

That’s a total of thirteen injuries this season. It’s still only 5 PL games in, and September.

Of these 13 players, only one of them is match fit as of Monday 18th September 2023, the other 12 are still out injured.

As you’ve probably guessed, this is the worst injury record for any club in the Premier League this season so far. We’re on track to complete four successive seasons with one of the worst injury records in the PL and Europe already.

In total, from June 2020 Chelsea have had 213 - two hundred and thirteen - injuries. That’s more than one injury per week, though some are multiple to the same player (like Reece James).

The last time Chelsea had a fully fit squad was 23rd November 2021, at kick off, Chelsea v Juventus in the Champions League. Ben Chilwell got a long term injury that night, Reece James not long after and we’ve never been the same. With Christopher Nkunku set to be injured well into December, we’ll definitely go past TWO YEARS without having an injury free squad.

Now I’d say 5 of our currently injured players are first team starters when fit - Nkunku, Carnes, Badiashile, Reece and Caicedo.

That’s literally half our first choice outfielders not available through injury.

This is why we’re seeing players like Enzo, Chilwell and Levi not playing in their best positions. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino is having to find temporary fixes to resolve short term problems. It’s not about mis-profiling players at all, its about having to make do with a makeshift squad due to injury.

It’s also why we have so many young players on the bench. We currently have 14 fit first team squad members. PL match-day squads require 20 players, so we have to fill the 6 remaining spaces with academy players.

How this is Pochettino’s fault or an excuse, I fail to understand - it’s a legitimate problem all elite coaches would struggle with.

Imagine Pep Guardiola had 14 first team squad members available, or Mikel Arteta, or Jurgen Klopp. Their teams would be decimated and results would be impacted

I mean let’s just imagine the reality of some other teams/clubs, past and present, with 5 key players out of their first choice XI.

Let’s start with Chelsea’s legendary 04/05 PL winning team. Imagine if we had JT, Lamps, Eidur, Drogba and Makelele out of the team. Our starting XI would then have had Alexi Smertin as DM, Scott Parker instead of Lampard, Mateja Kezman instead of Drogba, Tiago instead of Eidur. Would a regular team with those players get 95 points to win the league? Not a chance.

More up to date, say Man City’s current team had 5 key players injured. Imagine Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez, Bernardo Silva, KDB and John Stones all out of their team. Who is scoring their goals then? Who is creating? It puts way more pressure on the likes of Grealish and Doku. They’d be eminently more beatable with those 5 out for a long period.

Finally, let’s take Arsenal’s current team. Take Rice, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli and Saliba out of their team and they aren’t the same team, they’d struggle to get top 4 without them. They struggled markedly just from having Saliba injured last season.

When you look at it like this, it becomes even more strange that a number of our fans think taking Nkunku, James, Badiashile, Carnes and Caicedo out of our team, 4 of them for several weeks or months, is an excuse for us not scoring or creating enough, or an excuse for poor coaching, when we have a young inexperienced squad still learning and adapting to the manager’s philosophy 5 games in.

As I said before, genuinely baffling.

It’s also tough for Poch to build a clear identity with so many key players missing. Nkunku was absolutely key to making it all work, and he’s out till December at least. The chances are had he been fit, we’d be on about 8-11 points at least now. Losing him at this point in the team's development was literally the worst thing which could have happened to Chelsea.

So as you can see, injuries are far from an excuse. I wouldn’t expect any manager to do much better with the tools at his disposal, given its a young team with a lot of raw talent.

Why is it happening? Well medical staff don’t cause injuries, and as you can see, its been a problem for 3 years or more under different medical staff, ownerships, and coaching teams. Some of them are just bad luck, some on international duty…but truly, at this point I can’t explain why we’re getting so many injuries to key players. Sometimes I genuinely feel someone put a hoodoo or curse on our club, all we can do is hope it improves soon.

Bottom line, we’re not winning mainly because struggling to take our chances right now, and that needs to change. But this isn’t helped by our real world class attacker, Christopher Nkunku, who can score and make goals, being injured until December. Its’ impossible for us to judge this team and its’ potential until we have our key players available and playing consistently.

No manager - or project - can possibly be judged when half the squad are on the injury table, and it’s utterly ridiculous for anyone to do so. It’s not an excuse, it’s a very real and serious problem no club should have to deal with, but Chelsea have to face on an all too regular occasion.

The Score