Palace fear Nketiah injured with personal trainer

CRYSTAL PALACE are verifying the origins of Eddie Nketiah’s hamstring injury amid concerns he has fallen victim to the trend of players employing their own performance ‘specialists’. Eagles medics are trying to establish details of the injury to their £30million summer signing from Arsenal, but suspect the problem was sustained during a session outside of Palace’s own training schedule.

There is hope the injury is not serious and that Nketiah will be available to face Aston Villa after the international break. Nevertheless, Palace are concerned by the situation. They paid a huge fee for the striker, who earns in the region of £100,000 a week, to lure him from the Emirates.

But the fact they will be without him for tomorrow’s clash with Fulham for an injury that, according to sources, did not happen on their watch has raised alarm.

Indeed, Mail Sport understands Palace are looking at putting in place new structures to avoid players picking up injuries away from their supervision.

The Londoners are not the only club to have growing anxiety about stars seeking external help. Players now invest huge amounts in assembling their own teams of personal trainers, chefs, physios, psychologists and nutritionists in search of reaching optimal condition.

‘It is not uncommon for players to pick up injuries when having their own personal training sessions,’ said a well-placed source from a top-10 Premier League side. ‘We’ve accused players of being injured with their personal trainers, but proving it isn’t easy.

‘It’s coming from a good place, they just want to be the best they can. But all their training and diet plans are meticulously tailored by the club. For them to go away and do more work, as admirable as it might be, goes against sports science.’ Among the clubs said to have similar issues are Chelsea and Arsenal. During Harry Kane’s time at Tottenham, there was apprehension about his collaboration with Canadianbased sports medicine specialist Dr Alejandro Elorriaga Claraco, as the striker looked to cure long-standing ankle issues. Claraco never set foot in Tottenham’s Enfield base, despite his relationship with Kane, and some of his recommendations were not well received by Spurs staff. Yet there is very little clubs can do to control their players’ post-training activities.

‘It is crazy that some players would push it so hard with their personal trainers that they’d risk injury,’ said a source at another Premier League side.

‘They have their “experts” and ultimately we can’t stop them, but we are the ones to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong.’