Injuries, injuries and more injuries - a little rant and a cry for help

[Saxonaitor]

I'm up to 6 first team players out now for minimum of 6 weeks!!!!!! :( I jinxed myself

[crouchaldinho]

You really did!

I've just been designing some new pre-season and during season training schedules to see if that will help.

I've also signed a better physio.

I am enjoying this save, so I really want to see if I can carry on and get past my injury problems.

C.

[Delvey]

Just a thought that seems to have worked for me - Have you tried upping the fitness training one or two clicks from where it is on the default schedule?

Thats where I have it and I consider myself to a pretty low injury rate (maybe 3 out of 20ish at any one time)

[deejay10]

My physio's are the hardest working members of my staff during matchdays. Why ? Because they are always running onto the pitch. Match injuries are definitely too high, and matches ending without at least 2 players with 'green' injury icons are very rare.

[parkside]

C

My own general observation is that match injuries are too high, and at the level set can spoil the game with small squads. As a rule I tend to have an extra GK in squad and seldom make more than 2 tactical subs as insurance.

A few stats to compare with your game stats

http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/2003_04/injury_analysis_2.php

Got to agree that injuries are too high and for sure its spoiling the game for me,got close a few times to calling it a day with FM which is a shame.I hardly ever pick up an injury during training however during games i often get one and sometimes two players crocked,after a while it does get a bit tiresome.Tried a few different tactics and do notice a slight change in frequency of injuries...still too many whatever the tactic imo.

[crouchaldinho]

Clearly, the level of injuries is unrealistic and it doesn't appear to be anything that I am doing, as I have tried pretty much everything under the sun to bring them down.

I was enjoying the save despite the injuries but getting very frustrated with them. I was having some fun with the save though and I've put quite a bit of time into it already, so I am in two minds as to whether to abandon it or to carry on for now. But I don't want to put more time in, only to find myself still bitterly frustrated by the level of injuries.

Like you Parkside, I am on the verge of giving up. I've just spent ages devising pre-season and during season schedules to see if they can make a difference. Even though I've been ultra careful with fitness etc., I've still got six players out with injuries.

Half of me wants to uninstall FM09 and attach a post-it note to it with a list of everything that really annoys me about it, so that I never get tempted to play it again! The other half of me wants to carry on playing because I have a huge craving for FM in my spare time at the moment and I really want to play a long-term game with St. Albans City and take them up the leagues. These injuries are far too frustrating though and it's starting to really get on my nerves.

Regards,

C.

[crouchaldinho]

... I've still got six players out with injuries ...

Make that seven!

[crouchaldinho]

It's not Football Manager 2009, it's Injury Manager 2009.

[Balthazars]

I have not had a chance to read the whole thread, but I wonder if this is more of an issue with lower-league management.

I have heard about 'injury bugs' in FM since FM07, but in all honesty, have never experienced it myself. There are always some seasons when injuries seem to strike the team like the plague, but always within boundaries of reason. FM09 I've had a few issues with the length of injuries (some minor injuries still knock a player out for far too long, but sometimes they actually come back faster than the news items says that they will) but nothing particularly serious (I have only played as Arsenal and AZ on FM09).

Your situation does appear to be atypical, however.

To my mind, injuries (both frequency and duration) should be affected by the following factors:

- Quality of training facilities

- Quality of physio staff

- Pitch quality and dimensions

- Game style (e.g. high tempo, hard tackling)

- Training, both pre-season and during the season

- Level of squad rotation

- Frequency of matches

- Player condition

- Player injury proneness

- Luck

Lower-league management would most likely mean you have poor quality training facilities, a poor physio, poor pitch, and probably a low level of squad rotation (although frequency of matches is not too high?) as a 'fact of life' further down the leagues. That seems like a perfect combination for disaster on the injury front in my opinion.

I know people are saying that training has no impact, but I am surprised that people argue for low-intensity and even-lower aerobic/strength training. Logically, that doesn't make any sense. Think about it, if you don't do any fitness training, and then are expected to go out and play 90 minutes twice in 7-10 days at full match intensity, I think my chances of getting an injury would go up.

Pre-season, I do a mid-intensity aerobic+strength-focused training scheme (i.e. about 80-90% of the focus in pre-season is aerobic and strength) for ALL outfield players. Usually I'll get one serious injury in the pre-season, although an injury-free pre-season is not unusual. About a week or two out from the start of competitive football, by which stage most, if not all, outfield players are showing 'match fit' as their physical status (heavy rotation and playing about 6 friendlies will achieve that, even with a big squad), I switch all outfield players to position-relevant schedules that are on 'heavy' (usually 1 or 2 notches down from 'intensive', but that can change sometimes). Depending on the position, aerobic is quite high. Finally, since FM08 I started using a 'recovery' training schedule that I put injured players into when they 'return to training' until they regain 'match fit' in their status and/or are re-introduced to first-team action. Again, this training is aerobic+strength focused, and on a mid-level intensity.

I still get injuries (as expected) but have only ever had the odd absolute injury-crisis. This is with both Arsenal and AZ, so quality of coaching/physio staff and facilities is very high; maybe there is something about the way injury risk is calculated that is a greater burden on lower-league teams.

The other reality is that you may well just be extremely unlucky. Well, good luck for finding a solution.

[Wiitastic]

get in the go with buying players who can play multiple positions well enough. Like for example, players who can play both wings, or a player who can play both DL and DR. Or even a Striker who can play MC and vise versa, these players are like gold and extremely valuable

[Ajaxkevi]

Thanks for posting. I'm trying that now and will let you know how I get on.

How low do you have them out of interest?

Regards,

C.

Few away from high.

[crouchaldinho]

Just had four physio reports in my inbox in a row.

Three players injured in a reserve match. One injuried in training.

Two players out for 4 weeks and two players out for 2 months!

I now have a huge squad to cope with the injuries but this just isn't any fun at all.

[crouchaldinho]

Hit continue and another player is out after an U18 game. 4 weeks again.

[mlp071]

Crouchaldinho, do you mind uploading your game somewhere, by chance?

From what i can see you are not doing anything different then me and i have so few injuries that press is asking me about my "injury-free " squad in press conferences, after i played 7 matches in 20 days time.

I would really like to see what exactly is different between your and mine approach.It can be helpfull in roder to figure out what is going on , since we are getting such extreme difference injury wise.

Thanks

[crouchaldinho]

mlp071 - I won't be uploading the save but thanks for the interest.

I'm having slightly less injuries this season but I now have a huge squad and I am rotating it and so I think that has played a part in it. I've also reworked all of my training schedules.

It sucks having to have a big squad in order to rotate at my level, as most non-League clubs have small squads. I like to work with smaller squads anyway to be honest.

Anyway, the save has limited interest left for me now and not just because of the injuries. I think I'm going to play out the rest of the current season and then finish with it.

Thanks again for your interest.

Regards,

C.

[mlp071]

mlp071 - I won't be uploading the save but thanks for the interest.

I'm having slightly less injuries this season but I now have a huge squad and I am rotating it and so I think that has played a part in it. I've also reworked all of my training schedules.

It sucks having to have a big squad in order to rotate at my level, as most non-League clubs have small squads. I like to work with smaller squads anyway to be honest.

Anyway, the save has limited interest left for me now and not just because of the injuries. I think I'm going to play out the rest of the current season and then finish with it.

Thanks again for your interest.

Regards,

C.

Sorry that you lost interest, but it's understandable, i would have to. On rotation, what is huge squad for you? Mine is 18 first teamers + 4 loanee's and rest is youth players (as an emergency backup).

Only have to rotate wingers on somewhat regular base, and possibly fullbacks depending how much Stamina they have in stats.

Either way cheers

[crouchaldinho]

I'm talking more than 23 players really for a 'big' squad. I tend to stick to around 20 players really. I don't use the loan system particularly either.

At non-League level in real life, many clubs will have as few as 16-18 players with youngsters making up the rest of the squad and a few loans coming in during the season. On FM08, you could get away with that and any injury disaster would be tough (like it is in real life) but on FM09, you just can't play 'realistically' at that level. Or at least I can't, anyway.

I do tend to use my youth squad but, with the injuries I've been having, I'm not competitive enough without having extra quality backups.

The central midfield and forward positions are where I seem to get most of my injuries. Then my fullbacks and wide midfield players tend to tire a lot, so I need quality backups there too.

[mlp071]

I'm talking more than 23 players really for a 'big' squad. I tend to stick to around 20 players really. I don't use the loan system particularly either.

At non-League level in real life, many clubs will have as few as 16-18 players with youngsters making up the rest of the squad and a few loans coming in during the season. On FM08, you could get away with that and any injury disaster would be tough (like it is in real life) but on FM09, you just can't play 'realistically' at that level. Or at least I can't, anyway.

I do tend to use my youth squad but, with the injuries I've been having, I'm not competitive enough without having extra quality backups.

The central midfield and forward positions are where I seem to get most of my injuries. Then my fullbacks and wide midfield players tend to tire a lot, so I need quality backups there too.

I can't use loans to much in BSN/BSS anyways, since no one wants to come(talking about BSP players), but that's generally optimal number that i would take. Right now i got 14 + 4 reserve 18 y/o + 4 loans in L2( just got promoted). Anything more then that will cause headache.If i get hit by same "injury bug" ,like other people are having i will be in deep end to.However, i adjusted (my homemade)tactics after 9.3, so i can use same wide players with more or less no rotation and that helped.Having 17 games run without defeat kinda is showing that they work.

I would sugest you to try some less match intensive leagues, so injury bug would not affect you that much. Turkey has really good LL league setup, as well Sweden. Plus in Turkey you can only sign Turkish players, which are or quite bad or big time primadonna's ( i love it).Romania is another one i would think of.

Don't give up yet

[crouchaldinho]

Thanks for that mlp071.

Unfortunately, it looks like my hand is being forced anyway.

Last night, I had some weird problems with FM09. The game came up with all of these XML errors and wouldn't load up. Then, when it finally did load up at the fourth time of trying, I ended up with the activation screen. Not really sure what happened but it was asking me to activate again. :confused:

Every time I tried to reactivate, I got some weird errors. I ended up having to uninstalled, delete the certificates for the game, reset the computer and then reinstall. Finally, I got it activated.

Following that, I loaded FM09 and got loads of XML errors again. A gentleman on the technical bugs forum helped me to get rid of the XML issues but when I went to reload my saved game, it didn't work!

I cannot, for some reason, load my saved game at all now. I've no idea how all of this happened. I was playing the game earlier in the evening without a single problem. I saved the game, exited FM and put my laptop on standby. Then when I came back a few hours later to have a cheeky go on FM before calling it a night, I got all of these problems. :confused:

I'm not having much luck, am I? I mean, first of all I get all of these injuries and now my actual save game appears to have an injury!

I'm a bit disappointed. Although I have the game on rolling save, which means I should be able to recover my save game, I'm not sure I can be bothered any more. I had just been on an excellent run and my last result was beating Havant & Waterlooville 4-0 away from home!

As for your idea about starting in another league, I might have been tempted by the lower leagues of Sweden. However, I really wanted to have a good save in the Blue Square South with my Saints team first. To be honest, if I can't get my saved game back, I think I will call it a day.

Ah well, let's see if any of the technical guys can help me.

Regards,

C.

[knap]

C

Happens to England as well - not training or tactic related as no Spurs players

[isuckatfm]

^totally off topic but Xisco picked for England

[Blitzzzy]

I just had 10 players out of my 20 man squad injured, 6 of them for 2 months +....this is 8 games into the season. I downloaded an ingame editor and took all the injuries off. I'm not dealing with this crap, it's a game.

Mind you, this is the first time it's happened to me. I can completely tolerate not being able to pick 8 players for a couple of weeks but this was just ridiculous.

[Blitzzzy]

BTW, why is it that when a player comes back from an arm injury, they're tired? Or ingame, they get an arm injury and their condition drops to like 55%???

[x586]

Interesting thread, primarily because I had very similar problems managing Workington in the BSN in the latest game (Fm2009).

First team squad of 18, five outfield players in the reserves plus some youth (barring one player, none used in the first team). The major problems throughout the first season were with DL/ML positions, and I eventually got in three DLs and two MLs to hopefully mean at least one of them was fit. In the final few games of the season, all of those players were injured (one out for 4/5 months with a torn calf muscle, the others tending to be off for 2/3 weeks with various strains). All of these injuries happened during matches, with a tendency for them to be in the first half. I ended up playing DRs at DL for the last few games.

Similar problems with the MR position, in which all three players who played there during the season (Guichard, Hopper, Vipond) went down with strain injuries. Guichard was particularly prone during the season to pulling up in games. Strikers also had strain injuries in-match on a regular basis, and all three of them were rotated throughout the season. As with the DL problem, the last few games of the season saw all SCs out through injury, meaning the playing of an AMC up front. In total, we finished off the season with 9 first teamers out.

I had no notable problems with the GK, DC, DMC, MC or AMC positions during the season. I usually had 5-6 players injured at any one point. Training was part-time default, tactics 4-1-3-1-1, usually attacking / direct / low time wasting.

Despite all this, Workington got promoted with some ease, but I decided to strengthen the squad. In the BSP, ten games in, I've had two injuries and the slight problem of rotating a 25-man squad as a result. I do though have a much better physio (15, compared to 6) now. All of this affordable due to getting Leeds in the FAC 2nd round (lost 1-4), and getting £150k in TV money

Interesting to read the comments here - my own sense is that the BSN seems to be particularly bad for injuries when compared to the other English leagues I've played. That might be caused by particularly reckless tactics, but as with crouchaldinho's experience, I don't think I've done anything too risky. Chance, or causality? Hmm....

[Jorge Campos]

I've found that strikers tend to be the players that get injured for my squads, and it's happening only in matches in FM09. They don't happen in training. I've struggled with striker injuries for several versions of the game, and I'm not quite sure what causes it. Yes, I'm playing with patch 9.3. In fact, I didn't even buy FM09 until 9.3 was released.

I use custom training schedules, but there's nothing really out of the ordinary about mine. I'm using custom schedules for forwards, defenders, and goalkeepers. I leave the midfielders to the default general training.

For my forwards, I have strength and aerobic at medium, and the only areas where there is high intensity is shooting and attacking. I don't have these anywhere near maximum, though. I also tend to have ball control higher than default, but I also lower the defending and set pieces to keep the overall intensity at medium. Again, the injuries aren't happening in training, so I don't see this as the problem.

In my match tactics, if and only if I have strikers with really good pace, acceleration, and dribbling, I will set them to run with the ball often. But otherwise there is nothing extreme about my tactics. I never use hard tackling, and I always play at a medium tempo. I also never close down for the entire pitch.

In this first saved game in FM09, the persistent striker injuries forced me to use two reserve players who really aren't good enough to play in the first eleven, and then I had to buy two more strikers. As soon as they joined the club and played a couple of matches, they got injured as well. At times I've had four strikers injured simultaneously. If it was only this saved game or this version of the game, I would consider it bad luck. But this problem has been around for years.