Medical expert can’t believe Wolves doctor’s behind-the-scenes claim – ‘this is just wrong’
The medical department at Wolves does not deserve criticism for the club’s injury record in 2021-22.
That is the view of medical expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in injury and data analysis.
Speaking to club media earlier this year (31 May), Dr Rob Chakraverty claimed Wolves had a “bad year” in 2021-22.
The head of performance and medicine at Molineux went on to say that “as forwards are judged on their goals and assists, then we’ll be judged on our injury rates.”
But data collected by Premier Injuries and posted by Dinnery via Twitter last Thursday (30 June) shows that Wolves actually had one of the best injury records in the Premier League for the recently-completed season.
Dinnery explained why context is key and why medical departments are almost never solely to blame for a club’s injury list.
“I’ve always championed the fact that medical departments are unfairly and wrongly judged based on the data,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“For the most part, their role is reactionary. They work with the physios and then the strength and conditioning guys and then they are passed down the line.
“Unless we’re talking specifically about return-to-play timeliness, there isn’t really a specific issue here. It’s such a collective effort nowadays.
“So many different departments are involved and it’s just wrong to point to just one of those.
“Wolves have set themselves particularly high standards year on year. They are never far away from being the best-performing medical department.
“Rob said it was a bad season. Maybe in terms of some the injuries and the timing of the injuries, that’s true. But what I want to show is that it wasn’t just Wolves who experienced that this season, it was all clubs.
“Internally, Wolves were disappointed but I don’t think it was bad at all. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it was very good.
“I think there’s an opportunity for enhanced understanding here and maybe not to be so self-critical. For the 2021-22 season, it was always going to be difficult to hit those same high standards.”
In other news, Wolves and Brighton make moves to sign Steven Benda.