The current conditioning of the players

Why Liverpool are now in good shape

Liverpool's Glen Johnson benefits from his new fitness regime

By Paul Joyce

ONE OF the first points made to Brendan Rodgers when he took charge at Liverpool was that victories such as Sunday’s notable triumph against West Ham would not be possible.

Not because Sam Allardyce’s side was expected to tear it up in the Premier League. Rather that one of the main performers, Glen Johnson, who opened the scoring with a blistering drive in the 3-2 win, would not be available for selection. Rodgers was told it was highly unlikely Johnson could play three matches in a week, as he has just done. Steven Gerrard and Daniel Agger would also struggle to make repeat appearances. Game by game the myth is being dismantled.

The art of management is governed by player availability and as Liverpool display the green shoots of recovery following a difficult start to the campaign, another piece in the jigsaw is being put in place. Agger is enjoying his best run of Premier League appearances. The only match he has not started this season was due to suspension.

You can easily prevent injury by wrapping your players in cotton wool and not letting them play games, but that isn’t the point. Gerrard is the only player to feature for every minute of every league game and Johnson, in the form of his life, is now playing midweek matches, as was the case against Udinese in the Europa League last Thursday. The improvement is not down to luck. Liverpool’s medical team, which includes Glen Driscoll as head of performance, have improved how they protect and condition players.

Instead of pulling players out of games, the idea is to manage their recovery better which is achieved, in one instance, by modifying training sessions using small spaces rather than full-scale pitches.

“You can easily prevent injury by wrapping your players in cotton wool and not letting them play games, but that isn’t the point,” said Driscoll, who first worked with Rodgers at Reading before joining him at Chelsea, Swansea and now Anfield.

“For Steven, Dan and Glen it was a simple process of looking back at every soft tissue injury, hamstring and calf strains are examples] that they had over the past two seasons and going through the process of analysing their training and recovery between matches and before each injury. Steven, for example, covers 120metres a minute in a game and in training previously he was hitting 90m a minute."

He is currently performing to 30 per cent of his average speed and only 10 per cent of his high intensity distance in the training sessions before matches, compared to when he got those previous injuries, which aids his recovery and reduces fatigue in preparation.

“In pre-season, we did say with confidence to Steven that we could keep him fit and recover him better, so that he could have another three or four years playing at a high level if he wanted.”

It may seem that Liverpool are divulging some of their secrets. Another area looked at has been the removal of gym work on certain days because it does not aid recovery. Yet the reality is that without Rodgers’ own understanding of the process, and willingness to embrace it, the facts and figures would be largely redundant.

“Controlling the extrinsic causes of injuries means controlling the training on the football pitch and understanding that it is all down to space, numbers of players and duration,” said Driscoll, who is aided by physio Chris Morgan and Ryland Morgans, another recruit from Swansea who is head of fitness and conditioning.

“In football drills these decisions allow you to either protect or condition footballers. When to place these sessions in context to your next or previous match is the key. Many sport scientists don’t understand this, let alone managers. Some do but don’t have the influence to affect the management and their training."

“The beauty here is we have a manager who not only gets it but manipulates it as part of his own methods to achieve success and protect players from injury. The manager is aware that each player has a threshold level and if he goes above that threshold then the probability of injury in the next match rises.”

Players such as Luis Suarez, who only ever seems to miss games due to suspension, are regarded as being “relatively unbreakable”.

Others need more careful handling. The fact both groups are playing together shows the progress being made.

link to The Express

Interesting enough I guess, especially the bit about Johnson as before I would have never put him in the category along with Agger & Stevie with not being able to play 3 games in a week. I did love the bit about Suarez being 'relatively unbreakable'  

Very interesting article. I've always wondered why we always seem to be stuck in an injury crisis in every season in the past decade really.

That is some great stuff. I suppose that's all the "sports science" stuff that was being talked about when Brendan and his team came in.

Very interesting indeed, let's see what our injury list looks like in the new year!

Science!!

Not just recovery but also general match fitness.

Jimmy Johnson (ex Dallas Cowboys coach in the NFL) once said "Fatigue makes cowards out of us all".

Basically when you are tired you lose the will to fight. If your players are better conditioned they can make the other team give up by applying constant pressure and never tiring. Especially important in a sport such as "soccer" where there are limited substitutions and near constant running from some of the players.

I remember when I think it was Souness first took over and we suddenly started getting quite a few injuries (of the same type) and it was put down to the change in training methods. 

Well it must work both ways and this seems fairly obvious - but it obviously isn't commonplace practice.

What is also good is that it looks like BR puts people in place and is actually prepared to use their expertise in their given field.

Thanks for posting that article
Great to read about how thorough our current set up is.
Bodes well for the final weeks of the season where if the current performances have indicated then we may well be positioned nicely with our little wave of momentum

good article that is. Good work .