Premier League players could be 25% more susceptible to injury when football resumes because of the intense schedule, research shows.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters is “as confident as we can be” of restarting in June.
Time will need to be found for the FA Cup before the 2020-21 season starts in “late August, early September”.
Based on Project Restart’s provisional return date of 20 June, Manchester City players could face 13 games in 49 days.
City have played one fewer match than the majority of Premier League clubs but these figures do not take into account the completion of the Champions League, which has the potential of adding another four games should they reach the final – if the tournament can be concluded.
Research conducted by artificial intelligence platform Zone7, which specialises in injury risk forecasting and works with 35 professional football teams worldwide, shows that playing eight matches in a 30-day period increases the incidence of injury by 25% when compared with playing four to five matches in the same timeframe.
Eight matches in 30 days may seem a regular occurrence but only 4% of players across a season are subjected to such a run of games.
It is not just the congestion of the fixture list that poses a concern, but the time provided for teams to transition from individual, socially distanced training to higher-intensity group training, something Watford manager Nigel Pearson and Newcastle boss Steve Bruce are concerned about.
The Bundesliga was only officially given the go-ahead to recommence on 7 May, just nine days before the first fixture kicked off. Eight players picked up injuries in the six games on 16 May – a rate well above normal.-BBC
