Tom Cleverly hobbled off the pitch with a groin injury in Villa’s 1-0 loss to Swansea over the weekend, that takes Villa’s current injury list to 9! The international break couldn’t have come sooner for Aston Villa, not only are we fighting for Premier League survival, but a spot in the FA Cup Final.
Currently the likes of, Matthew Lowton, Ron Vlaar, Philippe Senderos, Nathan Baker, Aly Cissokho, Kieran Richardson, Joe Cole, Libor Kozak and Tom Cleverly. Out of those 9, 6 players are defenders which has strained Aston Villa’s defence to a large extent. Last game Hutton and Bacuna both played out of position against Swansea and it could be argued that Bacuna failing to contain Montero resulted in Gomis’s late goal.
Last week a report was released that analysed Aston Villa injuries for the past 5 years. Throughout the past 5 years Villa players suffered 181 injuries in total, that came out to an average of 36 different injuries every year. 2011-12 was the worst year for Villa injuries, where 45 different kinds of injuries were suffered.
But what does that all mean? Effectively Aston Villa players have lost a total of 245.7 months of playtime, that equals to the age of Andreas Weimann. Lastly, Richard Dunne’s injury kept him out for 17.5 months, more than any other player for the past 5 years. Lastly, defenders have suffered the largest number of injuries with a total of 73.
The report was fairly interesting and I suggest that you take a look at the full document. But in summary, injuries have not come at the best of time for Aston Villa. Especially in Villa’s defensive areas, with only two fit centre-backs Villa are in a little bit of trouble. Ciaran Clark is one booking away for missing two games, and with no other fit centre-backs. That’s something that the club and Tim Sherwood can’t afford at this stage of the season. Having a fit left-back would also allow Bacuna to play further forward and allow Hutton to play in his more natural role at right-back.
A bit of a worry at this crucial time of the season,I’d actually forgot about sendeross.vlaar’s played a grand total of 14 league & cup games so far this season,I think with the International break hopefully the injury list will be reduced.I suppose fingers crossed eh??UTV
Ps not too worried about cleverly he can’t play in the manure game anyway.
I often wonder how serious some injuries are, ever heard of mind over matter, as a young man I played twice weekly got knocks every game but for the love of the game I still turned up to play, one injury took me out ,a clavicle break left shoulder, I’m amazed that we have so many out ,are they genuine or not ? I wonder.
We are in the shit again make no mistake could find ourselves back in the bottom three in a couple of games real terrible season one I will have no problem forgetting.These last 5 years have left me with a bitter taste in my mouth the years the owner didn’t want to know.
Buying Crocks
What is the value of a player in the transfer market? That must depend in part on the value to the selling club of keeping the player. One of the reasons prices go down is the injury proneness of the player. On days that he cannot play the players is not worth nothing, he is worth a negative sum – his weekly wage. For this reason some apparent quality players have a bargain price tag, but are not a bargain.
Definite Crocks before Villa took them on include Vlaar, Senderos, Cole and Richardson so it is no surprise they are sick notes at VP – that is exactly why the selling clubs sold them.
Cissoko is debatable but he did go off injured for Liverpool before losing his place.
All by ourselves we have KO’d Kozak, bent Benteke, burnt Baker, and laid low Lowton.
It is not a happy picture but while we can hope the players injured by us may recover completely the Crocks we bought will remain crocked when we need them most.
There’s a lot of sense in what you saying OLL, I often have wondered if on chasing a purchase of a player do they look at his past injures in the game, I think not,its as you’ve said cheap in the window player sold by unscrupulous agents and clubs.