Andy Robertson missed out on our memorable win over Ajax due to a knee injury sustained against Napoli and there have been some studies on how much football he has played in recent years.
As reported by Simon Hughes for The Athletic: ‘Robertson has played more than any other Liverpool player since 2018, having taken part in 17,213 minutes of football.
‘Among 270 male footballers, Robertson averaged 122.7 hours of rest between appearances, the eighth lowest in a sample that also assessed the number of “critical zone” matches, a reference to the number of times a player appeared in matches consecutive without at least five. days (or 120 hours) of rest that separate them.
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“The study found that 65.1 percent of Robertson’s games over the past four years have been in the ‘critical zone,’ with 19.5 percent of games coming after fewer than three days’ rest.”
Of course, all of this is testament to the reliability of our beloved left-back and the caliber of football we have been playing over the last four years, but also to some pretty alarming statistics.
The Scotland captain may have been injured a long time ago and this current spell on the sidelines may, indeed, do him some good, in the long run.
Many will point out that Kostas Tsimikas is a ready reserve and more than capable when needed and it’s quite possible that our No.26 has been playing while very fatigued this season, until now.
With such serious injury problems in our ranks at the moment, there must be some change in the amount of football we expect from footballers, but money will always trump player protection.
Stats like this illustrate why we have so many injury problems, but also why Jurgen Klopp talks so often about schedules and match loads, even though opposition supporters rarely hear the sense that he talks so often.
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