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The Statsman's avatar

Ben, I heard somewhere that Wayne Rooney had faced the same circumstances, with him getting burnt out in his early 30s, when he re-joined Everton, right. Currently, Bukayo Saka can face the same consequence and is currently injured as well, with heavy workload put on by Arsenal on him with PL, UCL, FA and Carabao cups & England matches.

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Ben Wylie's avatar

They both had played around 7,000 league minutes through their age-19 seasons, you’re right!

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Angus Merry's avatar

Really fascinating stuff about Barcelona. I’d be curious to know if there’s a tipping point for injuries by age. Do they drop off substantially (or even at all) after, say, 19?

Like you said, Barcelona’s probably got a tighter grasp on the data than the public ever will, but that’s something I feel like could definitely inform their approach to create more sustainability.

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Ben Wylie's avatar

Thanks Angus! I’d like to do some proper analysis on the injury info Transfermarkt collate, for sure - something to watch out for.

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Ruymán Ferrera Martín's avatar

I think there is one piece of information missing that adds arguments to the main idea of the text: Pedri played 2827 minutes for UD Las Palmas in Second division in the season before joining FC Barcelona.

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Ben Wylie's avatar

Ah yes that’s a great point! Thanks for mentioning, I should have included a reference to that.

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