Celtic have lost 380 appearances to injury this season across the squad. On average 6.7 players are unavailable each game due to injury.
Ever Available
Only 5 players in the squad have been avoided missing games due to injury.
And one of these is a goalkeeper (tends to have less injuries), two are only recently joined on loan (Toljan and Weah) and one is a young prospect (Johnston).
Of the experience out field players only Sinclair has avoided injury this season.
Injury Table
Four players have missed over half the season. Three (Bitton, Arzani and Kouassi) due to cruciate knee injuries and one (Griffiths) for a variety of reasons mainly his own mental well-being.
Every senior player in the squad has missed at least 2 matches apart from Forrest and Sinclair. Which is surprising as they play in wide attacking positions and are usually heavily tackled.
Thirteen players have missed over 10 games and a full team plus one sub (12 players) have missed at least 25% of the matches.
Celtic are on course for a 63-match season. This follows 61 and 59 in Rodgers’ previous seasons. With European Qualifiers starting in July, preseason training starts early June. Celtic players have had 3 to 4 weeks off in the summer typically. Less if they have appeared in International summer tournaments.
This summer looks like being the same but at least there is no major International tournament.
Player health management needs to be a priority.
Whatever Ronny Deilas team did with Forrest and Griffiths under his reign needs looking at again.
This has a lot to do with certain clubs’ players targeting our players all season and the referees not booking them early enough in games, resulting in them those players getting away with nasty tackles early in the game.
There may be other factors, such as the number of games we play, the training regime etc etc, but I believe that this has been the largest contribution to the injuries caused this season.
The events of the last couple of weeks demonstrate this effect with a terrible injury to Ryan Christie from Dominic Ball, which looked as if it was meant. Chris Ajer had his jaw broken earlier in the season from a elbow which looked premeditated, and then his jaw was targeted again after he returned from injury. How often have 2 players from the same team suffered such injuries in the same season?
Morelos also got away with 3 possible red cards against Celtic in one game and has been let off all season with nastiness and assault. Our referees have not protected players enough, especially ours and we predicted at the beginning of this season that this would be the case. When players realise they can put the boot in and not get punished, then gradually as the game progresses, the tackles get much nastier.
As a former teacher, I know the importance of setting the rules out clearly and fairly to students, so that they learn how to behave properly. One particular referee, who is also a teacher, seems not to have mastered this at all.
In short, referees contribute to injuries by not clamping down on early misdemeanours. This has allowed a higher than normal injury list for Celtic this season. The published figures for this and previous season going back for a good numbers of years, show that Celtic’s disciplinary record is exemplary, consistently at the top of the good behaviour list. Others, such as Sevco, Aberdeen and Hearts have a poor disciplinary record. This has been a subtle way to target our players, as they cannot stop our dominance by playing football.