Former Arsenal director of high performance Darren Burgess has shed light on one of sport’s biggest injury questions, providing valuable insight into the cause of Bukayo Saka’s latest injury.
Arsenal’s former director of high performance Darren Burgess has shed light on the age-old question of who gives the go-ahead to the match despite players and injury fears. Injuries are often the subject of great debate and can be one of the clubs deepest secrets.
The inner sanctuaries of how clubs make their first-team decisions are perhaps without equal when it comes to Arsenal. Burgess’s tenure predated the arrival of Mikel Arteta, working with both Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery, but a constant throughout all three managers’ tenures has been a desire to keep how things work behind closed doors.
Speaking to Elliot Smith on the Arsenal Vision Podcast, Burgess posed the legendary question of who makes the final call on whether a player starts. Does it fall on the manager or the medical staff?
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“Ultimately, the manager makes the decision with the player,” Burgess said. “And there have been situations where Elliot, with or without a doctor, I’ve basically gone to the doctor and said, “I don’t think Elliot should play. This is a risk. If he has to play, you know, we think it’s about 20 minutes, 30 minutes. But it’s ultimately your decision.”
“Then manager A comes to you and of course you would never, ever say no to a manager, and I don’t think you should either. [the player says]’Yes, I am right to go. Yes, no, I can start. No problem.’
“And that’s how the decision is made. And you know what? It’s probably how it should be made. And it’s only when there’s a lack of understanding and clarity about job descriptions and what people do and don’t have to do that confusion sets in.
“So if the manager has completely lost trust in the performance director, the fitness coach, the performance manager, the doctor and whoever, then you have big problems.
“Most of the time I go into a place from my personal experience and the manager won’t trust me after four or five months. And that’s okay because you have to earn the trust. Arsene even told me that verbally after three or four months.
“He said, ‘Okay, now I trust you!’ And that’s good. I’ve had players do the same thing. This doesn’t always happen, and that’s when the problem arises.
“But ultimately it’s the manager’s decision on the player. If you’re a 30-year-old veteran and a 19-year-old player, the manager will probably trust one version over the other. It’s very interesting.”
Burgess oversaw the rise and integration of Bukayo Saka into the Arsenal squad under Emery. The 25-year-old has now made more than 320 appearances for Arsenal since his debut, an incredible amount for a player potentially halfway through his career.
Saka has had numerous injury problems in recent seasons and most recently came off early against Bayern Munich. Arteta has been scrutinized for how exposed some of his players have been and certainly Saka’s recent problems have led critics to once again highlight Saka’s utility for both club and country.
Burgess was asked how thoughtful people in his role should be about players like Saka. Inside, he gave an interesting insight into a theory that helped narrow down what could be the cause of the Arsenal talisman’s woes in Germany.
“If you give Raheem Sterling and even examples [Cesc] Fabregas, they were nowhere near the level of minutes of the match [Lamine] Yamal and probably even Bukayo,” Burgess explained.
“So I fear for the young players in the game now if they are thrown out and mismanaged, especially when they are playing in the Premier League where the intensity is just through the roof. You can argue, and well, you can argue the facts, that most other leagues are not as intense as our Premier League players.
“When I am [at Liverpool]When Raheem Sterling came and made his debut and I remember Martin Skrtel and Steven Gerrard and it was just, welcome to the Premier League.
“He trained for the first time at Liverpool and missed three weeks with an ankle injury after Skrtel and Agger went off with him. It was very different when Bukayo made his training debut.
“Everybody was just jaw-dropping because we couldn’t believe the first four or five steps this player took. It was electric. I remember sitting in Unai’s office after that and he just said, ‘The rumors are true. This guy is incredible. No, he doesn’t train here with the academy anymore. He stays on top.”
“And he trained with us almost from the first time he came on as a young player and that I think allowed us to focus as much as we could. And the academy did a good job in bringing him in, but his natural talents were there for all to see. So we have to be careful.
“I don’t know anything about his injury other than, as I’ve mentioned before, more focus on explosive players. As you say, quite rightly, injury is often a product of what happened earlier, especially early in the game. You can rule out game fatigue, and warm-ups in general are massively overrated.
“You can probably rule out a warm-up. So it’s probably something that happens on or off the practice track. Something that builds up over time and usually causes soft tissue damage early in the game.”