Tottenham blame NFL for injury-plagued season

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Tottenham launched an investigation to determine why they have suffered so many injuries this season and believe their retractable pitch at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, used for NFL matches, may be partly to blame.

Spurs are coming off a disastrous campaign both on the pitch and off it as they came dangerously close to being relegated from the Premier League for the first time ever and the first time from the top division since 1977.

Some of it has been of the club's doing, some of the blame must land on the players, while a lot of the misfortune is down to Lady Luck, too, as Spurs have had to contend with a laundry list of injuries that has severely impacted the playing squad throughout the relegation-threatening campaign.

In all competitions this season, players lost the equivalent time of 370 matches due to their time on the sidelines.

Towards the end of the campaign, Xavi Simons injured his ACL against Wolves and will now miss the World Cup. Dominic Solanke also went off injured in that game and he joined join Ben Davies, Mohammed Kudus, Guglielmo Vicario, Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison, Wilson Odobert and Cristian Romero in the treatment room.

Kulusevski hasn't played a second of Premier League football this season after undergoing patella surgery, while Maddison only managed 34 minutes of action across three substitute appearances at the end of the campaign.

Kevin Danso, Radu Dragusin, Koto Takai, Destiny Udogie, Djed Spence, Rodrigo Bentancur, Joao Palhinha, Yves Bissouma, Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray, Pape Matar Sarr, Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani have all spent time on the sidelines in 2025/26, too.

Speaking after the 1-0 victory over Everton on the final day of the season, which ensured Spurs' survival, Maddison said: “Our situation with the injuries has been worse than any other club. People try to say: ‘Oh, but we’ve got this and that.’ But ours is astronomical and we need to look at why that is.

“Sometimes it can just be unlucky, sometimes it can be a coincidence, like me doing my ACL or Kulusevski getting a horrendous knock off [Marc] Guéhi. That’s not the medical team, that’s not the pitch or all the theories that you see, sometimes that’s rubbish.”

Tottenham's medical team had came under criticism this season, particularly after Simons was assessed at the side of the pitch and allowed to return when it soon became clear he had injured his ACL.

The club's new performance director, Dan Lewindon, has conducted a three-month investigation into tplayer welfare and other areas and the pitch raised concerns. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has a retractable pitch that vanishes so a 4G pitch can take its place for NFL matches.

Since the new stadium was erected, it has held 14 regular-season NFL fixtures.

An external investigation to determine the bounce of the pitch compared to the training pitch was inconclusive, but a club-led investigation will take place to compare it to other Premier League grounds.

Real Madrid have a similar retractable pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu and they too have suffered from numerous ACL injuries over the last couple of seasons.

Since the start of the 2024/25 season, Tottenham have suffered 123 injuries - only north London rivals Arsenal have suffered more in the Premier League in that period with 146.

The club's non-executive chairman Peter Charrington said in an open letter to supporters on Monday that the club would place a “significant focus on raising standards across medical and performance.”

Lewindon’s review is believed to have identified structural problems within the club’s performance department.

There is thought to be a lack of integration, communication and collaborative decision-making, contributing to injuries and repeated injury setbacks.