Truth behind injury crisis & stats show something has got to give for players

Mikel Arteta called it 'an accident waiting to happen'. Rodri insisted players might have to go on strike. Ange Postecoglou compared Tottenham's constant injury problems to an oncoming train.

We have heard for as long as Premier League players and managers still have air in their lungs that top-flight footballers are being pushed beyond their limits – and now Mail Sport has the numbers to prove it.

Exclusive research by Premier Injuries revealed how serious hamstring injuries have rocketed amid fixture congestion and an increasingly intense style of play.

Hamstring injuries occur when the muscles are overstretched or overloaded, often due to high-speed sprinting and fatigue – and they are soaring.

Last season, Premier League players suffered 163 hamstring injuries, a leap of nearly 25 per cent from an average of 131.25 across the previous four campaigns.

Premier League clubs had already recorded 100 hamstring injuries this term before the most recent round of midweek fixtures and there's almost a third of the season still left to play.

Of all injuries this season, hamstrings make up nearly a quarter of them. What's most concerning is how serious those injuries have become. More than half of them last season sidelined players for more than 30 days – 85 of the 163 – a shocking 64 per cent rise from the previous four-season average of 52.

It's the same this season, too. Fifty-one of the 100 have sidelined players for a month and, ahead of the midweek round of fixtures, 32 of those hamstring injuries were players currently on the treatment table, meaning that percentage is likely to only get bigger.

Seven players so far have been confirmed as undergoing surgery on hamstring injuries: Joe Gomez, who came off early during Liverpool's shock FA Cup defeat to Plymouth, having only just returned from the same injury; Wilson Odobert at Tottenham, Igor at Brighton, Bournemouth's Julian Araujo, Reiss Nelson at Fulham and the Arsenal duo of Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz.

That doesn't include Kieran Tierney, who had surgery in the summer after pulling up injured for Scotland.

That's already two more than last season and the same as the entirety of the 2022-23 campaign.

'It's been a perfect storm,' Ben Dinnery, founder of Premier Injuries, told Mail Sport. 'We know the physical demands placed on the players in the Premier League are like no other. Players are required to run at higher speeds over greater distances with less recovery time. That feeds into the red flags around fatigue.

'Once you have had one hamstring you are always going to be prone to picking up a second. Just this season for example, there are several players who have had multiple hamstring injuries, the likes of Callum Wilson, Micky van de Ven, Bukayo Saka, Mason Mount, Alisson and Gomez.

'Such are the demands of the game that any slight issue is exacerbated and that's why these hamstring injuries are cropping up and why players are breaking down.'

Those demands are clear to see. Last season, players ran 52,650 miles across the entire Premier League campaign – more than 1,628 miles further than the one before.

It's how quickly and intensely they are running them that's the key.

Last season, players sprinted 106,115 times, 4,500 more than the season before and nearly 7,800 more than the one before that. This season, players are on track to touch 110,000.

Players pressured their opponents nearly 138,000 times last season and will do the same again this time around – 5,600 times more than in 2022-23 and nearly 14,000 more than 2021-22.

The speed of the game is increasing at an alarming rate and the spike in hamstring injuries prove its taking its toll.

'This is yet more evidence the demands being placed on players are unsustainable,' Maheta Molango, CEO of the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), tells Mail Sport. 'Players have consistently raised concerns about the physical load they're facing, and the data shows those concerns are justified.

'It also impacts club finances, managers, and ultimately, the quality of the game for the fans. As we get to the business end of the season, we want to see the best players performing at their peak – we shouldn't see major competitions being decided by who can get the fittest team out.'

The PFA is currently taking legal action against FIFA alongside other player unions over expanding the Club World Cup, accusing the world governing body of putting commercial interests over player welfare.

Medical staff at top Premier League clubs insist it takes 72 hours after a game for elite athletes' tissues to recover so repeatedly playing multiple games a week stops them from training to build up protective muscle around the tendons and puts players at risk.

When Havertz sustained his hamstring injury, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said: 'We've had players who are injured who've played 130 games in the last two seasons, so it's an accident waiting to happen when you continue to load, load and load.'

Sources at FIFA point to a study last year by the CIES Football Observatory that showed elite footballers actually play fewer minutes in competitive matches than a decade ago.

The number of lucrative post-season and pre-season tours around the world also, rightly, often comes up in conversation.

Readers will also reflect on the old days of unlimited FA Cup replays and Football League Christmas double headers.

It's not just the number of matches – it's the intensity of them.

Ahead of the recent midweek fixtures, no side had sprinted more than Tottenham, no side run more miles, no side pressured their opponents more in the final third – and only Brighton had suffered more injuries.

Ipswich, the second furthest runners behind Spurs, have also been hit heavily with injuries this season while high-pressing Bournemouth have seen their players spend the longest time on the side lines on average, suggesting theirs have been the most serious.

With so much at stake, managers cannot afford to be without their star players when it matters so to keep on top of it many are turning to AI.

Liverpool have used technology from a company called Zone7 that tracks fitness data of their players and attempts to predict when injuries are likely to occur and so prevent them.

Arsenal and Crystal Palace are among a few Premier League clubs who use Teamworks' Athlete Management System to organise their medical information and keep on top of their player workloads.

It's also led to Premier League clubs being inundated with pitches from AI companies trying to flog the latest technology purporting to be able to revolutionise keeping players fit.

Mail Sport knows of at least one Premier League club approached to see if they were interested in buying some AI mirrors that would analyse players while they preened themselves in front of their reflection.

In Postecoglou's first season at Spurs, the percentage of their injuries that were hamstring issues jumped from 12 per cent to 30 per cent. This term, it's around 40 per cent.

It does look, though, that he might – finally – have realised that his all-out style might have played a part in their injury crisis.

In none of Tottenham's first 20 league matches did his players sprint fewer than 150 times, averaging 181 per game, yet have done so in five of their last seven at an average of 40 fewer.

After all, something has got to give. Either the number of fixtures or the intensity at which they are played. It can't be both because, at the moment, the only things that are giving way are the players' bodies.