Liberty Pitch Not To Blame For Injuries

Swansea gaffer Roberto Martinez has dismissed claims that the Liberty Stadium pitch could be to blame for the recent spate of knee injuries.

Ferrie Bodde, Marcos Painter and Stephen O'Halloran have all had their season's ended by cruciate knee ligament injuries picked up whilst playing at the home of football in the last seven weeks.

It has been suggested that both rugby and football being played on the Liberty pitch contributed to the injuries, but Martinez puts them all down to bad luck.

El Gaffer told the Western Mail:

'It`s more a sign of bad luck than anything else,' he said.

'Hopefully now we have got it all out of the way and we are free of injuries for the rest of the season. We are not at all concerned with relaying the pitch or anything like that.'

'We have looked into every incident, how the accident happened, and the pitch wasn`t to blame for any of them.'

'It`s just bad luck with the individual challenges. Many worse tackles can go in and everyone is fine, it`s just the way it goes.'

'It`s a bit weird that they all occurred down the left flank, where the left-back should be. But that`s just football for you.'

'It`s not just the three cruciate ligament injuries though. Take Dorus de Vries` face injury, you don`t get many incidents like that.'

'So we don`t think it has anything to do with the pitch. They are just accidents and it`s very unfortunate.'

'The problems we have are all footballing accidents. But we have a big enough squad to cope and we have to hope our luck has changed now.'

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