The part sheer luck plays in the fortunes of players and managers is often wildly underestimated but one thing is certain: Steve McClaren is not enjoying much of the stuff at the moment.
Newcastle United may be bottom of the Premier League table but, with 13 senior professionals on the treatment table, they top the division’s injury charts. Possibly the cruellest blow for their manager was the news that an awkward fall on an icy plastic pitch in Kazakhstan has left Tim Krul, his goalkeeper, nursing a ruptured cruciate ligament.
Krul, who sustained the injury playing for Holland, will not appear again until next season and, in the short term at least, his absence can only be compounded by the fact that Karl Darlow, his deputy, is still some weeks away from returning from an ankle problem.
Rob Elliot, Newcastle’s third-choice keeper will be in goal against Norwich City at St James’ Park on Sunday when McClaren must pray he can choreograph his struggling side’s first league victory of the campaign.
After that, the following Sunday sees Newcastle’s manager take his squad the short distance to the Stadium of Light where a Sunderland team, presumably reinvigorated by Sam Allardyce’s arrival as manager, hopes to secure a sixth straight victory against their local rivals.
The teenage England youth international Freddie Woodman, recalled from a loan stint at League Two Crawley on Sunday, is likely to be on the bench for both games but the loss of Krul was the last thing McClaren needed at a time when Newcastle are enduring their worst start to a season since 1898 and have conceded 17 goals in eight league games.
Although Krul’s injury was the sort of unfortunate accident that happens in football – and particularly on treacherously unforgiving surfaces – Newcastle have suffered an unusual amount of muscle and soft tissue problems over the past decade.
No one can do anything about the impact injuries which represent one of the game’s foremost occupational hazards but there have been far too many of the non-impact variety on Tyneside in recent years.
Assorted managers including Graeme Souness, Alan Shearer and Alan Pardew have been driven to distraction by their dwindling, often job-threatening, selection options. Like Sam Alllardyce before him, Pardew, experimented with ice baths, hoping they would help accelerate players’ recovery from matches and training but, still, the club’s physiotherapy staff continued working overtime.
It was an issue McClaren immediately attempted to address when he succeeded John Carver in June. The former England coach hired the highly rated Brazilian fitness coach Alessandro Schoenmaker, as head of sports science. Dubbed “Mr Muscle”, Schoenmaker has an excellent track record in injury prevention and is widely respected for his previous work with McClaren at Twente, Wolfsburg and Derby County.
So far, he is finding Newcastle an unusually tough job with his task compounded by the fact that several first-teamers came into the summer still struggling to overcome injuries sustained last season.
Previous close seasons had seen Pardew appoint first the highly regarded Faye Downey and then Dave Billows as the club’s fitness supremos but, despite their best efforts, the treatment room remained as busy as ever.
McClaren’s attempt to succeed where his predecessors failed means the manager has changed the coaching itinerary at the training ground. The players now undertake the majority of their physical work early in the week with sessions becoming increasingly less intense as Saturday approaches.
Thursdays are now generally a day off but, so far at least, this alteration is taking time to make an impact. If a truncated pre-season featuring a long-haul tour to the United States which McClaren feels “cost a week” of potential preparation time has arguably wreaked havoc with the team’s physical health, to have 13 players out at this stage of the season is a remarkably high injury list. Arguably of even greater concern, is the fact that seven of those sidelined have muscle or soft tissue complaints.
Significantly, Manchester City and Manchester United, the two teams immediately behind Newcastle in the “injury charts”, appear in considerably better overall shape, having eight and seven players sidelined respectively. Meanwhile a cluster of sides have six receiving treatment.
In marked contrast, McClaren could field an entire XI from his treatment room with places for two more on the bench:
It could look something like this: (4-3-3) Tim Krul (knee); Daryl Janmaat (knee), Steven Taylor (hamstring), Paul Dummett (hamstring), Massadio Haïdara (knee) ; Kevin Mbabu (hamstring) , Jack Colback (hamstring), Sylvain Marveaux (groin) ; Gabriel Obertan (hamstring), Emmanuel Rivière (knee), Rolando Aarons (calf)
Subs: Karl Darlow (ankle), Curtis Good (hip)
Although Janmaat, Dummett, Haïdara and Colback have outside chances of recovering in time for involvement against Norwich, the recent loss of Dummett and Haïdara has left McClaren without a specialist left-back.
With Fabricio Coloccini struggling for form at centre-half he could also have done with a fit Steven Taylor at his disposal but a centre-half much liked and admired by Pardew has undergone a hamstring injury and will be out until December at the earliest.
That is not much help to McClaren as he contemplates four key matches, against Norwich, Sunderland, Stoke at home and Bournemouth away before the next international break.
Fail to win any of that lot and Newcastle will be left contemplating surgery infinitely more radical than the assorted operations far too many of his first team have recently endured.
