This Picture Says it All: the shocking injury statistics
At present Newcastle have nine players out injured [Danny Simpson (broken toe), Jonas Gutierrez (knee), Vurnon Anita (ankle/foot), Haten Ben Arfa (hamstring), Steven Taylor (hamstring), Yohan Cabaye (groin), Dan Gosling (knee), Haris Vuckic (knee), and Ryan Taylor (knee)].
Given that the average age of our squad is relative young in comparison to most other teams in the Premier League, it’s hard to understand how we’ve been so unlucky. The youthfulness of the squad would suggest that the players would be fit and would recover faster. However, this is certainly not the case.
As a result of our lengthy injury list, our younger players have been forced to step up into the first-team this season, when they would not have necessarily played otherwise.
Pardew had this to say last week:
‘We had youngsters playing today who should be in the development side,’
‘We are missing too many of our top players and we need them back and quickly.
‘The truth is I’ve not put out our best team in a single game this season.’
In my opinion, the only way to counter this damning statistic is to buy and reinforce a squad which at the moment is really struggling to meet the demands of a hectic fixture schedule.
Why do you think we’ve been so unfortunate with injuries this season? Who would you like to see being brought in to reinforce our thin, young squad?
* Statistics courtesy of injuryleague.com
The Spectator's View 
Come on guys -” Unlucky”?
Every season we have half the first team squad out for weeks, a problem going back years. Remember Souness talking about the soil and sand on the training ground?Too many strains and impact injuries?
Something somewhere is not right. Whether its the training ground, the pitch at St James, the colder weather up North or the training regime. Its not unlucky – it’s environmental.
We had almost a full first team out injured, and lead that particular league yet again.
Look through the archives – Souness, Allardyce, Hughton, Roeder and now Pardew all put the teams performance (or rather lack of it) down to injury. Souness said “judge me when all my players are fit”
It’s probably true that injuries have put us where we are and as a result will have difficulties attracting decent players and will lose existing ones.
We have to stop maoning about our bad luck and get to the “root” cause
Yeah, fair enough point. What do you reckon the reason is then?
None of the injuries ever seem to happen because of a bad challenge. It’s always small things which triggers a ‘strain’, which eventually leads to an inexplicably long lay-off.