Limping to the Finish Line? Football and Load Management

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

In most American sports, there has been considerable research and an evolving conventional wisdom about seasonal load management for players. Pitchers no longer throw 250+ innings in a season, few basketball players will crack 3000 regular season minutes anymore, it seems more common for NFL front seven players to play fewer snaps and rotate more, etc. To my knowledge, these issues of seasonal load management really haven't been as prominently analyzed and widely discussed with respect to footballers. We all know that players can get jaded if playing too many matches in a short period of time, but are there limits to how many minutes they should be played over a season, where after a certain point you're going to see declining performance and greater injury risk?

I'm surprised that there isn't more talk about this issue given the unusual circumstances of this season - the same number of matches occurring within a slightly compressed time period (about 8.33 months rather than 9 months), coming after a summer break that was far shorter than usual. That doesn’t sound like an ideal time to push players beyond their normal work load. But in England there are a number of players on course to play a really steep number of minutes across all club competitions. For example, Marcus Rashford has never played more than 3447 minutes in a club season across all competitions. Right now he has played 3117 minutes and United will have somewhere between 14-21 matches left in their season depending on how far they progress in the Europa League and the FA Cup. If, for example, they make the FA Cup final and the Europa League semis, that would be 20 more matches, or 1800 more potential minutes. If Ole played him the full 90 in every match, that would be 4917 minutes or 43% more than his career high, in a season that is already unprecedented in terms of the toll on players.

Not everybody is like Rashford. Some of these guys have played into the mid to high 4000s before in their careers, but that was often in far less intensive league environments like Portugal or Belgium. And it was in seasons spread out over more time when players had enjoyed longer summer breaks beforehand.

I think several managers are going to have big decisions to make in the next few months. Are they going to just keep selecting these players for every single match and hope for the best even as climb into the mid to high 4000s in minutes played or even past 5000? Or are they going to rotate their stars in some high stakes matches? This seems to me like one of the lesser noted but very important stories to watch in the last couple months of the season.

As far as I can tell, here are the players with the highest minutes played from English clubs that were in European competition this year. Where a player had a notably low career high in minutes played, I put that in parentheses.

Harry Maguire, 3495 minutes
Aaron Wan-Bissaka, 3218 minutes
Youri Tielemans, 3177
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, 3141 minutes (career high 3200)
Bruno Fernandes, 3120 minutes
Marcus Rashford, 3117 minutes (career high 3473)
Ruben Dias 3107
Andy Robertson, 3088 minutes
Mo Salah, 2992 minutes
Heung-min Son, 2967 minutes (career high 3379)

 

[Zomp]

Mms nobody responded to this but as a United fan I’m starting to see the exhaustion affect players who’ve played twice a week, nearly every week, all season.

Martial could be out for the season and I’m very worried about Marcus Rashford. Not only are his minutes at an all time high but he’s clearly trying to play through injury. England rested him during the International break but Ole played him again yesterday before he had to limp off. Rooney once played a similar stretch while injured and was never the same player. With Euros coming up I actually think Rashford wants to keep playing so he can be fighting for a starting spot but it’s a fine line and I think he crossed it a long time ago.

 

[Section30]

I found a few studies online about standard injury reports but couldn't locate specific studies on overuse.

Training time is around 6 to 8 times the minutes played in competition. This has to factor into overall energy depletion.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4495432/

The study at the link above attributes 7.7% of overall injuries to Overuse. It also shows that apart from direct contusion/collision the injury rates are roughly evenly split between training and game minutes.

 

[Zososoxfan]

Periodisation has definitely been a thing for some time, managers know about it, but frequently it seems like their job security and results cause them to play established but tired legs. When LCFC won their EPL title, it was frequently noted that they were significantly aided by the fact that they weren't in European competition and could generally play the same well-rested XI weekly. In order to compete for trebles, the biggest clubs have to have depth and be willing to play it in domestic cups and even in some domestic leagues.

I think players have bristled against this and they see any time they sit as a threat to their job security. They're also generally maniacally competitive and want to play every match. Playing tons of matches certainly increases the likelihood of injury but also decreases the quality of play. I think this is most true for outside and B2B MFs who put in huge shifts every match.