Expert issues ‘mind-blowing’ verdict after Man United ‘time bomb’ claim – ‘this is scary’
Man United players are putting themselves at risk by employing unqualified off-season coaches.
That is the view of injury expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in medicine and data analysis.
Marcus Rashford, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Eric Bailly, Jadon Sancho and Axel Tuanzebe have all taken to social media to document their training in the off-season in recent weeks.
The Red Devils did not return for pre-season at Carrington until Monday (4 July), and all individual players’ programmes prior to that date took place outside of club supervision.
United’s former head of performance Tony Strudwick told The Athletic last Thursday (30 June) claimed that working with third-party coaches is a “time bomb waiting to happen”.
Dinnery explained why this trend is both “mind-blowing” and “scary”.
“It’s pretty mindblowing,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“We see these players go away and do their own programmes but not all of them are club-led, which I find unfathomable. Players are allowed to go off and do whatever with whoever.
“You see these Instagram videos with exercises that you question the functionality of. Is it all for social media? Do these trainers have the pre-requisite qualifications?
“Working in elite sport, you need to understand the player’s specific needs and their history.
“On top of that, you’re talking about working with multi-million-pound players. Do they have the right insurance for that? If they are injured, who is culpable? This is something that needs to be managed a lot more strictly.
“Ultimately, these players are assets and they need to come back to pre-season in peak condition.
“Simon Brundish did some analysis and he reckoned there were about 144 players that he was aware of who were at the time undertaking some sort of off-season programme.
“Only one of those was certified through the relevant strength and conditioning associations. That’s scary.”
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