Medical insider issues ‘massive’ claim as Chelsea set for behind-the-scenes overhaul
Chelsea have one of the best injury records in the Premier League and do not need to revolutionise their medical department.
That is the view of medical expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in injury and data analysis.
The Daily Mail reported last week (7 October) that Chelsea have hired Dave Grohl’s personal physio Freddie Murray on a consultancy basis to overhaul their medical team.
They sacked senior medics Dr Pablo Biosca and head physio Thierry Laurent last month.
“If you were to ask me over the course of recent years for those teams that inherently have a good injury record, Chelsea would certainly be up there,” Dinnery told Football Insider‘s Connor Whitley.
“Yes, they do play a high number of games and their time loss numbers may look quite high. If you contextualise that, they are fairly short-term injuries, they play lots and lots of minutes.
“Generally, you’re talking about a team that is up there in the top-six and they are up there with the best teams in the Premier League in terms of low instances of injuries.
“From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t say there appear to be any big issues there. But there is a new club owner and a new manager.
“Thierry Laurent had been there as head physio and had been there for eight years, seven as the head.
“It could just be a decision to change things up a little bit, a fresh method with a different pair of eyes.
“How that looks internally, we’ll never be privy to that. You wouldn’t want things to change too much after purely looking at the data.
“For the most part, things seem to be running fairly well off the field. We’re not seeing a massive amount of serious problems that would flag any major concerns.”
In other news, a finance guru has tipped Chelsea to win a £50million-plus “bidding war” as an approach is made.