steps wrote:
My next door neighbour is a devout Arsenal fan. He had a good laugh a few weeks ago when I told him we've employed their old fitness coach Gary Lewin, and then said "good luck with that."
I agree with the general point about needed to be a fitter team. This is quite noticeable.
Gary Lewin is a highly respected physiotherapist but not a fitness coach. Physiotherapists primarily treat injured players and are not primarily be involved with strength and conditioning. My impression is our injury rates are not spectacularly worse than others, given the raw materials the medical staff work with. They could certainly be improved, starting with who we buy (please no Wilshere).
I'm sure Lewin will be taking a good look at the injury data and be advising the conditioning coaches on injury prevention. As a high proportion of injuries (per unit time) occur in the final 20 minutes of a match as players tire, having good fitness is a prerequisite to minimizing injury rates and this may be one factor behind our injury rates. You'd have to look at the data of when and how injuries occurred and any competent medical team should be doing this.