Nottingham Forest’s attempts to ease their recurring issues with injury pile-ups have resulted in them appointing a fitness specialist who helped Chelsea to win the Champions League.
Adam Burrows, part of Thomas Tuchel’s backroom staff when Chelsea beat Manchester City to win the European Cup two years ago, has been recruited to the club’s strength and conditioning department.
His appointment followed internal talks at the City Ground to try to get a better understanding about why the club had one of the worst injury records in England’s top division last season.
According to to the Premier Injuries website, only Chelsea and Liverpool had more than the number of injuries, 37, reported by Forest over the course of their first season in the Premier League for almost a quarter of a century.
Although Steve Cooper’s team successfully avoided relegation to finish 16th, they often had to get by with a considerable list of absentees. Other data shows Forest’s players missed more days through injuries than any club bar Chelsea. In particular, there was an issue with hamstring strains and other muscular injuries.
Burrows was appointed at Stamford Bridge in 2019 after Frank Lampard’s arrival as manager. He had previously been part of Lampard’s backroom staff at Derby County, where he had been on the staff for eight years, and has talked in the past about being “predominantly in the gym, working on strength, power and areas of injury risk” to “develop strong and robust players.”
Forest had to overcome a number of injuries last season (Photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
Lampard has described him as “fantastic” and a key figure, for example, in Christian Pulisic’s adaptation to life in English football.
Burrows remained in situ at Chelsea after Tuchel took over as manager but left Stamford Bridge at the end of the 2021-22 season and has spent the last year running a strength and conditioning program at Nottingham Trent University.
His appointment at Forest comes amid a summer of change behind the scenes in which the club’s new chief football officer, Ross Wilson, has been instrumental since moving south of the border from his previous role at Glasgow Rangers.
As well as having the responsibility for helping Cooper assemble his squad for the new season, Wilson has been trying to develop the club’s infrastructure, including significant changes with the academy and women’s teams.
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(Photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)