Thomas Tuchel has seen Chelsea finish on top of the table when it comes to injuries.
Chelsea boss Tuchel has insisted his squad would have been closer in the title race had it not been for players missing key games. And his complaints have been backed up by new research which also shows the Premier League paid out more than any other top European league with injuries costing clubs a staggering £89.82m.
Premier League clubs also suffered more injuries than any other of Europe’s top leagues as there were 659 injuries overall in the data collected from the start of the 2021/22 season up to and including the weekend of January 18. The study carried out by data specialists Howden Sport and Entertainment for the report entitled Feeling The Strain calculates the cost from player wages and how many days they were missing.
Chelsea had a staggering 55 separate injuries, the absences cost the club £14.02m with the average cost of each injury totalling £250,000. Incredibly, the Premier League also saw the most soft tissue injuries - muscle pulls and strains - with each injury costing an average of £200,000.
It was Wolves who had the fewest injuries with just 15 while Crystal Palace were the only club whose injuries totalled less than £1m as they had 16 in total, costing £860,000. Covid also had a huge impact as 81 players tested positive in December and it cost clubs £14.2m which is 62 per cent more than the entire 2020/21 season.
But as if Tuchel did not have enough to worry about now with the club up for sale, the impact of injuries on his squad has been quite remarkable. Romelu Lukaku, the club’s £97.5m record signing, Reece James, Ben Chilwell and Christian Pulisic are among the big names to miss a significant number of games.
They were supposed to be title challengers this season and yet have fallen short but have somehow kept going in the Champions League and FA Cup. Tuchel was furious earlier in the season when Chelsea were made to play games despite Covid cases and a crippling injury list - and now you can see the full impact on his squad.
James Burrows, who is Howden’s Divisional Director of Sport & Entertainment, said: “Injuries are part of football and we have seen, over the last two years, there are a number of factors that influence how often they occur and how big a financial impact they have on clubs.
“When a player misses matches his wages are still paid and so injuries – even before you begin to consider the cost of treatment – are a significant financial risk as well as a potentially negative influence on team performance. What has been interesting to note for the EPL is that the month of December was the worst for soft tissue injuries, which correlates with the highest Covid-19 count.
“One potential explanation for this is that absences and disruption placed additional strain on healthy players, forcing them to play more frequently and for longer. An alternative is that players returning from Covid-19 weren’t at full match fitness before returning to competition.
“Either way, with rescheduled matches filling all the breathing space in an already compressed second half of the EPL season, high rates of soft tissue injuries are likely to continue through the rest of the season.
“Ultimately, our research and analysis provides a fresh analysis for Europe’s top clubs as they continue to talk to the game’s governing bodies about planned reforms to football’s calendar and the clear impact the pandemic has had on the world’s leading players.”
