Heavy early fixture schedule to blame for injury crisis says Mansfield Town boss Nigel Clough
Mansfield Town manager Nigel Clough believes an unnecessarily heavy early-season fixture schedule is to blame for the club’s injury crisis ahead of Saturday’s visit of Rotherham United.
Stags already had seven players unfit before last weekend's controversial 2-1 defeat at Port Vale in which they then had Ryan Sweeney sent off and Jordan Bowery (hip and thigh) and Joe Gardner (groin) added to an injury list that is now likely to see 10 players unavailable for this weekend.
“It is just a case of trying to get through the next two games and hope we get the international break,” said Clough.
““The biggest thing for us has been eight games in the first 29 days of the season.
“We had been back five or six weeks doing pre-season and there is no way you can get players up to speed to do that sort of load at the level that you can.
“You will play through three or four games, maybe 90 minutes, pre-season, but there is absolutely no way you can get them up for that sort of schedule.
“We now come to September and we have four games. I don't understand.
“All I can suggest is that the people who sort the fixtures do not understand football.”
Stags seem to have suffered a crippling injury list like this for several seasons in a row and Clough said: “It is incredible - and the variety of different injuries too.
“We had a meeting last week about it with the staff and we looked at what we were doing and all the data and figures.
“But there were no real abnormal spikes so we are just at a loss.
“But we are not the only ones. You look through all the clubs – even the Premier League – and they have all got five or six out and they are clubs with much better facilities and fitter players than us.
“We don't have many defensive options for Saturday now.
“It is the old phrase 'wrap them in cotton wool' now this week as we can't afford to do much contact stuff at all.
“We have Kyle Knoyle, we have Frazer Blake-Tracy and we have Stephen McLaughlin at the moment.
“We do have flexibility formation-wise. We went to three at the back last weekend when we went down to 10 men, which we normally do.
“It is just a lack of personnel.”
Clough does have the free agent market available to him, but said: “We have looked at that but the problem you get is that they have not been playing and it takes four weeks to get them up to speed, and by then the others will hopefully be fit.
“We do actually have someone in from that area today, which had already been arranged for a week or two. But it is the same old problem, getting them up to speed.
“They have not done a pre-season in a lot of cases and not played a lot of football.
“So unless they are exceptionally good or different then it is a no.”
On Saturday's struggling opponents he added: “Rotherham are just not quite getting the breaks at the moment from what we have seen.
“They have had very close games with the odd goal here and there and things are going against them.
“But they still have a very good squad on paper.
“They brought in a lot of new players in the summer who are still settling in a bit like us.”