Manchester United are reportedly turning to tech to get on top of injuries, with Ruben Amorim currently missing nine first-team players.
According to the Manchester Evening News, United want to create an algorithm to help predict injuries for new signings.
The newspaper reports that the club have “approached the University of Manchester to see if any students or staff have the skill set to develop an algorithm as part of their data overhaul.”
The Red Devils have long been perceived as behind the curve when it comes to data, with even co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe claiming that “we’re still in the last century on data analysis here.”
It’s therefore unsurprising to see the club looking to take strides in that area, although the MEN offer a cautionary tale about a previous effort made to predict injuries at Carrington.
In 2012, Sir Alex Ferguson gushed that their new medical centre was “a big signing for us and probably the most important step forward we have taken in a long, long time.”
Two years later the Toshiba Medical Centre opened and predicted lasting fitness and good health for centre-backs Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Jonny Evans – not one of them made more than 30 appearances that campaign.
It’s a problem which has not gone away, and two weeks ago United faced Tottenham Hotspur with 12 players on the sidelines as they slumped to a 1-0 defeat.
Last season Erik ten Hag had to contend with 66 separate cases of injury or illness, making his difficult job even tougher.
Mason Mount was handed to the Dutchman as a marquee signing, with United forking out a huge £60m for a player who would be a free agent 12 months down the line, but spent much of the season out injured.
He has barely featured in this campaign, and is almost as big a symbol of United’s injury troubles as Luke Shaw, who has played only 278 of a possible 595 matches since joining in September 2014.
The report cites a club source explaining that United have used “extensive data science to manage players’ workloads to try and reduce and avoid injuries” but there is clearly a need for more, with Amorim short of senior options amidst a terrible run of form.
Should they pull of the creation of an algorithm to go even some of the way to anticipating the fitness of players under consideration for transfer, it will be a significant boost to a club that currently seems to be going backwards in almost every area.
Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
