FEATURE: INTERVIEW WITH DR NIALL ELLIOTT
SCOTLAND’S topflight clubs have significantly reduced their players’ chances of suffering serious injuries and being struck down by illnesses in the second half of the season by sanctioning a winter shutdown, one of the country’s leading sports medicine experts has revealed.
Dr Niall Elliott, the Head of Sports Medicine at the Scottish Institute of Sport, has also stated the three-week break from competitive action could give Celtic an important edge in their Europa League last 32 games against Zenit St Petersburg of Russia next month.
Dr Elliott also believes that countries who have, unlike England, put their elite league into cold storage during December and January, and France, Germany and Spain have all taken time off, will reap the rewards when Russia 2018 gets underway in June.
The Scottish Professional Football League reintroduced the winter break in the Ladbrokes Premiership after an absence of 14 years last season at the same time as they unveiled a radical new Betfred Cup format.
Every top flight club gave their players a week off following the final league game at the end of December while many, including Aberdeen, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Partick Thistle and Rangers, have flown overseas for warm weather training stints since then.
The Premiership clubs will return to action this weekend when the William Hill Scottish Cup fourth round games are played and the league will resume the following week.
Dr Elliott, the Chief Medical Officer for the Great Britain team at the Olympic Games in Rio two years ago, has predicted the downtime will be invaluable.
“The benefits of rest and recuperation for professional f footballers are quite wide ranging,” he said. “The volume of work that they do is not greatly different to the volume of work that Olympic athletes do.
“A highly trained athlete is similar to a cancer patient undergoing a very mild course of chemotherapy in the respect that their immune system is more susceptible to infection and they are more likely to pick up coughs, colds and illnesses.
“Sport and exercise is good for the general public and boosts their immune systems. But at the top level, with highly-trained professional athletes, it is different.
“Overloading also causes issues with bone stress as well as problems with tendon and ligament injuries. Any chance of rest will help. The athlete doesn’t need complete rest, the loading just needs readjusted.
“The football season is getting longer. The full season runs through to the end of May and if you are involved in European qualifiers at the start of the following season they get underway in July. What breathing space do these guys have?”
CELTIC have often looked weary during matches in the 2017/18 campaign and their British record-breaking 69game unbeaten run was brought to an end last month when they were beaten 4-0 by Hearts at Tynecastle.
Players such as Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair have struggled to recapture the form they displayed when the Parkhead club went undefeated and won only the fourth treble in their history last term.
But, with a double header against Zenit looming on February 15 and 22, Dr Elliott is confident the time off which Brendan Rodgers’s charges have enjoyed will make a difference to their showings.
“The reality is that sport is on such a fine knife edge,” he said. “Anything that can help produce the optimum performance should be embraced.
“We, for example, spend a lot of time with our athletes advising them on hygiene and showing them how to wash their hands. If you can minimise their chances of picking up infections it can help.
“A lot of football matches are decided late on. If you have a goalkeeper who is a bit below par as a cross comes into his box in the 93rd minute that can mean the difference between winning and losing.
“We underestimate the importance of rest and recovery. You wouldn’t send a scaffolder up a ladder all day without a break. You wouldn’t ask a nurse to do night shift after night shift constantly without a day off. You can’t do the same thing with a sportsman or woman.
“You can also develop your body over the years. Scott Brown may be able to deal with more now than he has in the past.
“The clever manager will have a team behind him who understands the reactions of each individual player. But any rest and recovery is beneficial.”