Chelsea want “hamstring injury specialist” to help struggling medical department | OneFootball

Everything at Chelsea has changed from top to bottom since the new owners took over in May 2022, and one change that didn’t seem to work well was the shake up of the medical department.

Injuries this season have been at an all time high, and have truly crippled any chance new manager Mauricio Pochettino had of a strong start to life in west London.

The medical team’s struggles have only led to more departures. Head of performance medicine Dimitrios Kalogiannidis left the club after 14 years recently, and physio Steve Hughes left last month after an incredible 22 years at the club.

Those are just the most recent changes – there were a load more last summer, but nothing seems to have worked. Nizaar Kinsella’s piece on the subject today has the interesting claim that the club are on the hunt for a “hamstring injury specialist” to join the team, but that beyond that, things are “increasingly settled” on the medical side.

Malo Gusto looks injured.

Good as well as bad

Those under fire on that side of the club are apparently pointing to the “full campaigns” of players like Nicolas Jackson, Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Moises Caicedo. All of them ended up playing perhaps even more minutes than expected thanks to injuries to their colleagues, and none had major issues.

However pointing to the players who didn’t get injured doesn’t take away from the number who did. The squad have been missing up to 14 players at their worst moment, and the team we put out in the last couple of games saw almost 0 changes as there were only 11 fit first team players to pick from.

This summer gives a good chance to reset the whole operation, if the issues persist into a fourth consecutive year, we really won’t know where to turn, or who to blame.