Since the arrival of Dr Peter Brukner and his small army of Sport Scientists last summer, it has been hard to gauge really how successful the big changes in the medical department have been. There was a lot of talk of improving the injury situation at Anfield, with the Reds being hampered by a number of players sidelined with so called “soft tissue injuries.” Dr Brukner, a pre-eminent figure in the field of Sports Science and Medicine back in his native Australia, felt that football in particular, despite being the world’s most popular sport, had a lot to learn from other sports in regards to fitness and injury management.
This season has seen the likes of Daniel Agger, Steven Gerrard and Fabio Aurelio, three players who have lengthy injury records, being sidelined once again with recurring injuries, and it looked like any edge we would get for being at the forefront of Sports Science in football would be negligible, but Brukner talked to LFC Weekly this week about how their procedures and programmes may make a difference next campaign:
“They all have a programme. If they’re playing internationals, they’ll have a month off and the ones who are not will have six weeks off. But in this day and age you can’t just do nothing for four or six weeks. The players won’t have to do an awful lot but they will be on a maintenance programme so three or four times a week, they’ll have things to do.”
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