Bad luck or making our own misfortune? Peterborough United’s injury woes laid bare
- UpThePoshcast
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
When records of Peterborough United’s 2025/26 season are filed amongst the history books, there’s unlikely to be anything we will want to recall too keenly.
If anything, this season will be remembered for two things: firstly, the autumnal change of manager, and then the injuries that have blighted the campaign.
Chairman Darragh MacAnthony even admitted in his latest Hard Truth podcast, saying: “Injuries have just de-railed our season.”
Whether we have just suffered ridiculous bad luck or made our own misfortune is very much open to debate.
I am not going to give my opinion.
What I will do is lay out the facts of what has happened.
Sam Hughes
Injury: Achillies, long term
Most Posh fans were overjoyed when last season’s defensive saviour joined the club on a permanent basis in June.
But just a month after arriving Hughes was injured in a pre-season game at Colchester.
Initially we were told he would be missing for three months, but in November he joined the ranks of Setback United.
We were told Hughes was closing in on a comeback a few weeks ago but then Luke Williams revealed another delay in the defender’s return.
Rio Adebisi
Injury: Knee, long term
You have to feel for the young left back, who joined Posh for half a million pounds in the summer of 2024.
He has just played 14 minutes of first team football here.
At various stages of the season, we have been told he was closing in on a comeback and about to appear for the Under 21s.
We even saw Adebisi on the grass running before the game at Lincoln.
But that is as close as he has got to a competitive appearance.
The last news was that of another setback in early February.
Jacob Mendy
Injury: Groin
Mendy limped off with a groin issue against Bolton back in October.
He was considered fit to return just before Christmas and put straight into the team at Port Vale. But the ‘comeback’ lasted just 40 minutes before he was out of action again.
He was back in the squad to face Rotherham last week with a return off the bench.
Ben Woods
Injury: Calf
It’s gone under the radar, but Woods has already missed 20 games so far this season.
The midfielder arrived from Accrington with a finger injury, forcing him to sit out the first 6 matches.
He returned for U21s this week, his first appearance since the New Year’s Day victory at Rotherham.
Luke Williams said he initially had a tear in his calf but then suffered a setback with a new tear in a slightly different position.
George Nevett
Injury: Ankle
Nevett was one of the few successes of the early part of the season, earning plaudits for his role in the middle of a back three.
But the young defender picked up an ankle injury in the first half of former boss Darren Ferguson’s final game in charge against Blackpool and missed a big chunk of games.
He has only seen odd moments of action since.
Cian Hayes
Injury: Knee
Another of the training ground injury gang, Hayes missed 16 games after damaging knee ligaments in the lead up to a 3-0 defeat by Lincoln at the end of September.
This followed another knee injury at the end of last season, which led to a summer of rehab.
Harley Mills
Injury: Hamstring
Mystery and confusion surrounded the first stages of Mills’ lay-off as the club took a while to announce his injury.
The young left-back tore his hamstring during training but we had to wait for chairman Darragh MacAnthony to confirm the news.
He missed 16 games before making his comeback replacing injured team-mate Carl Johnston at Leyton Orient.
Declan Frith
Injury: Knee
Frith missed a handful of games at the start of the season after a knock to his ankle in training.
He returned before missing a further nine weeks of football with a knee injury.
Tom O'Connor
Injury: Hamstring
O’Connor’s season ended when he suffered a hamstring injury in the defeat by Plymouth in January.
He subsequently returned to Wrexham ending his loan spell with Posh.
O’Connor also had a spell on the sidelines in December with a calf injury.
David Okagbue
Injury: Ankle
The Irish defender missed nine games after suffering a nasty ankle injury in the dying moments of the home draw with Reading at the end of 2025.
Alex Bass
Injury: Foot
Maybe it was a sign of what was to come, but Bass’s foot injury in the pre-season game at MK Dons was a hammer blow on the eve of the new campaign.
The keeper arrived to great fanfare but the eight games he missed passed without a victory.
Matt Garbett
Injury: Foot
The Kiwi midfielder has been missing since early February, having arrived at the game against Wigan in a protective boot.
He was taken out of action to stop a minor injury becoming a major injury, and hopefully a swift return to action. But he has not been seen since.
No date has yet been set for his return, but Garbett has the chance of appearing in a World Cup looming on the horizon.
Tom Lees
Injury: Calf
The 35-year-old defied father time and many expectations by holding our defence together through the autumn and winter.
But suffered a calf injury during the warm-up ahead of the defeat at Bradford City, during a few days after a tough midweek trip to Mansfield.
Not seen since but apparently close to the top of the infamous rehab list in Luke Williams’ office.
Carl Johnston
Injury: Calf
As if to sum up our bad luck with injuries, Carl Johnston limped off after half an hour against Leyton Orient on the same day that Harley Mills returned to the squad.
Carl, a natural right back, had played the last 16 games as left back after injuries took out Mills and Mendy.
Luke Williams later confirmed it was a season-ending calf tear.
“So, and the irony is lots of them will finally get off, get back in the next like two weeks’ time, they'll be back, but too little, too late for some of them, and not quick enough for my liking. That's another conversation we can have in the summer. But I guess a lot of questions are getting answered for me.
Durability is a big thing for us as a football club. It always has been, and we haven't been good on that side. We haven't been good on the side of getting players back quick enough.
And that's not me blaming anyone. We haven't been quick enough on, we've had too many injuries of the same type. I think recently we've had four calf tears.”
On what happens next:
“Have a big review. Go into it all. You know, we've had four calf tears.”
We've had multiple hamstring tears. You can't mitigate against ligaments from getting a kick in the game. That's happened to players too.”
You can't mitigate against a hernia. Lots of players get a hernia. You know, a lot of players play through a hernia.”
Darragh MacAnthony, The Hard Truth Podcast
What is the cause?
Fans have speculated over the cause of our injury issues for months, some of the more commonly said reasons are:
Issues with the training pitches.
Poor fitness at the start of the season under Ferguson’s reign.
Lack of quality in the squad making it impossible to rotate players.
Significant increase in training volumes since Williams joined.
The truth is that we don’t know.
Whether it’s just rotten luck, or one of the above reasons, our season has been plagued with serious injuries which has derailed our campaign.
We can only hope that a cause is found, and rectified before we go again in August.
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