Mauricio Pochettino defends the Chelsea medical team amid the ongoing injury crisis at the club
Mauricio Pochettino has stood up for the Chelsea medical team despite the club’s rather big injury list, which left him without several stars available in the disappointing 0-0 draw against Bournemouth.
Chelsea had 12 injuries to contend with going into the game with Moises Caicedo, Noni Madueke, and Marc Cucurella also joining their injured comrades on the list. Thankfully, the trio are all fine and will be in consideration for this Sunday.
Injuries have been a constant factor at Stamford Bridge for some time now, with several managers left frustrated by the unavailability of key personnel. The fact that N’Golo Kante, who was perpetually out injured while in West London is today playing week-in, week-out for Al Ittihad paints a sobering picture.
The Argentine manager called up three academy players aged 19 with no prior experience with the senior team. However, the return of Caicedo, Madueke, and Cucurella will give some breathing space to Pochettino.
This has seen Chelsea’s medical team questioned about their handling of players’ injuries, but the Chelsea manager has backed them, (h/t Daily Mail) and said:
“Before we arrived here, we did everything to try and have a clear idea of why there were too many injuries last season and to analyse the risk. ‘ It’s about the profile of the player and the risk of the player. It’s not the people working in the medical staff’s performance area.”
”I think we need to respect these areas (at the club) as very good professionals, qualified people. That’s why they are working in football. But there’s an individual risk for certain players that you need to assess.”
There are undoubtedly concerns when half of your squad is injured, which has been the case at Chelsea since last season. Certainly, the medical staff’s handling of the players will be called into question given our crisis. Whether it has something to do with training methods or just a tendency to push players back into action before they are ready is debatable. Either way, Chelsea need to get to the root cause of this concern and will need to address it as effectively and as early as possible.
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Whatever the case, the club will need to take player injuries seriously as it has a serious impact on our performances on the field. The last thing we need is for players to keep falling like flies and failing to reach their potential.