It was clear to everyone that one of the major challenges Nottingham Forest's first season back in the Premier League was a running theme of injuries - and just what Steve Cooper had to contend with has been highlighted in new analysis.
The team behind Premier Injuries say that Forest are in the Premier League's bottom two "for just about every measurable injury dataset" in 2022/23 - and they had the joint worst record with Chelsea in terms of wages lost to injured players. It is claimed that 25 per cent of the budget went on players in the treatment room.
Only five Forest players were on the pitch for more than 2,000 minutes out of the 3,420 available and only two - Brennan Johnson (2,941) and Morgan Gibbs-White (2,978) - which emphasised "how disrupted" the team's campaign was by injuries. Even Gibbs-White missed 59 days over the course of the term.
Dean Henderson missed 145 days, with Forest claimed to be covering his wages in full for that period despite his loan status, while Jesse Lingard was only involved for 928 minutes. Omar Richards, who signed last summer, is still to make his debut due to a hairline fracture of the leg and he was left out of the 25-man squad for the second half of the season.
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Giulian Biancone suffered anterior cruciate ligament damage, Scott McKenna fractured a collarbone and had a serious hamstring problem, Neco Williams fractured a jaw and all there were apparently about 50 "time loss injuries" all in all.
"Steve Cooper managed to make the City Ground a bit of a fortress, but it was a battleground too," writes Premier Injuries' Jason McKenna in a comprehensive breakdown across the division. "The team escaped the drop but had one of the worst injury records in the league. This cannot continue into next season if they want to be able to continue their Premier League journey.
"The team are in the bottom two for almost every measurable injury dataset. But most worrying is what is... the joint-largest amount of their annual wages lost to injuries: 25 per cent of their spending on player salaries were on injuries and this is not a sustainable outlay for a newly promoted side, even if they are being bankrolled by billionaire Evangelos Marinakis."
