Yes, a player's injury record does follow him to a new club, but the move itself doesn't cause muscle injuries. Across 1,884 senior summer signings from 2023 to 2025, players who had missed no league games injured the season before missed 2.6 in their first season at the new club. Players who had missed 10 or more missed 5.0, and only 36% became regulars, against 49% for everyone else. Meanwhile, per hour played, players who changed league picked up muscle injuries at about the same rate as players who stayed put.
The Record Travels With the Player
We sorted every senior summer signing by how many league games he missed injured in the season before the move, then followed him into his first season at the new club. The pattern is steady: each step up in prior injuries brings more games missed after the move.
| Games missed injured the season before | Signings | Games missed after the move | Missed 10+ after the move | Became regulars | Scout52 Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | 915 | 2.6 | 9% | 49% | 5.8 |
| 1–4 | 586 | 3.8 | 12% | 50% | 5.9 |
| 5–9 | 247 | 4.3 | 14% | 49% | 5.9 |
| 10 or more | 136 | 5.0 | 18% | 36% | 5.8 |
Darker blue = more games missed. Red = the lowest share of regulars. Scout52 Score is the average first-season Score at the new club for players with enough minutes to be rated.
Two things stand out. First, the chance of a lost season roughly doubles: 9% of signings with a clean record went on to miss 10 or more league games, against 18% of those who had already missed 10 or more. Second, the drop in regulars only arrives at the top band. A player who missed a handful of games is no less likely to hold down a place than one who missed none. A player who missed 10 or more is.
A smaller group shows the same thing more sharply. The 18 senior signings who had missed 20 or more league games the season before went on to miss 7.9 on average. That's too few players to lean on, but it points the same way.
When they play, they're just as good
The Score column is the part recruitment staff should notice. Signings with a long injury record averaged 5.8 once they were on the pitch, the same level as everyone else (5.8 to 5.9). Injury history doesn't predict a worse player. It predicts a less available one. That changes the question a club should ask: not "is he still good enough?" but "how many games do we expect to get, and who covers the rest?"
Does Moving Cause Muscle Injuries?
The other worry that comes with every big signing is the move itself: a new league, a new style, a pre-season at a different intensity, and the hamstring that goes in September. We looked at 10,201 first-team player-seasons from 2022/23 to 2025/26 in the same eight leagues and compared each group of movers with players who stayed at their club. To be fair to players who play less, every rate is per hour on the pitch.
| Group | Player-seasons | Muscle injuries vs stayers | Likely range | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stepped up a level | 930 | 0.76 | 0.65 to 0.88 | Fewer |
| Promoted with their club | 971 | 0.72 | 0.62 to 0.84 | Fewer |
| Moved within the same league | 1,266 | 0.94 | 0.85 to 1.05 | No clear difference |
| Moved to a new league (all levels) | 1,686 | 0.93 | 0.84 to 1.03 | No clear difference |
| New league, same level | 548 | 1.20 | 1.05 to 1.38 | More, before adjusting for age and position |
| Stepped down a level | 208 | 0.84 | 0.65 to 1.08 | No clear difference |
| Premier League arrivals from another league | 255 | 0.96 | 0.76 to 1.22 | No clear difference |
1.00 = the same rate per hour as players who stayed at their club. The likely range is the 95% confidence interval: if it crosses 1.00, the difference could be chance. Green = clearly fewer, red = clearly more. Hamstrings are counted with muscle injuries.
Put simply, players who change league get muscle injuries at about the same rate as players who don't. The headline figure is 0.93: if anything slightly fewer, but the likely range runs from 0.84 to 1.03, so we can't rule out "the same". Inside the Premier League the answer is the same: arrivals from another league came in at 0.96, with a range of 0.76 to 1.22.
Two groups did clearly better than stayers. Players stepping up a level had about a quarter fewer muscle injuries per hour (0.76), and players promoted with their club had 0.72. One group did worse on the raw numbers: players moving sideways into a new league at the same level, at 1.20. Once we account for age, position, league and season, that gap shrinks to 1.10 with a likely range of 0.89 to 1.34, so it may well be chance. We'd treat it as something to watch, not a rule.
And hamstrings?
Hamstrings deserve their own line, but most league feeds only started naming them recently. Until 2024/25, many injuries were simply recorded as "muscle injury". In the three leagues where hamstrings are named for both 2024/25 and 2025/26 (the Premier League, Championship and LaLiga), players arriving from another league were no more likely to tear one than players who stayed: 0.99, with a likely range of 0.62 to 1.58. The range is wide because hamstring injuries are rare in any one group.
Movers do miss a few more games overall
There is one honest catch. Across all types of injury, players who changed league were slightly more likely to miss at least one game in their first season (about 14% higher odds once age, position and league are accounted for). The extra comes from knocks and unspecified problems, not muscles. Per hour played, their overall injury rate (1.03) is the same as stayers'.
Why Stepped-Up Players Look Fitter
It would be wrong to read the 0.76 for stepped-up players as "a bigger club keeps you fit". Three things are going on.
Medicals filter the movers. Clubs don't sign players they think will break down, so the injury-prone player who never moves sits in the stayers' group. That flatters every group of movers, and it flatters the biggest steps most, because the clubs at the top have the strictest medicals.
They're younger. Players stepping up a level averaged 24.3 at the time of the move, against 27.3 for stayers, and muscle injuries rise with age.
We only see missed league games. An injury picked up in a cup tie, on international duty or in training only shows up here if it costs a league fixture. Short knocks that heal between games don't show up at all.
Price the availability, not the quality
A long injury record doesn't make a player worse when he plays. Our signings with 10 or more games missed the season before scored the same as everyone else once they were on the pitch. What changes is how often they're on it: twice the chance of losing 10+ games, and a regular's role a lot less likely.
The move itself is not the risk most people think it is. Changing league doesn't raise a player's muscle-injury rate per hour. The recruitment question is the player's own history and the cover behind him, not the passport stamp.
What It Means for This Summer's Signings
Two of the 19 moves we analysed this summer came with a long injury record. Rodri missed 13 Premier League games injured in 2025/26 with thigh, groin and hamstring problems. At Barcelona he has played in nine of their ten league games so far, for 607 minutes. Gabriel Jesus missed 12 with a knee injury at Arsenal and has made six league appearances for Barcelona, for 199 minutes and three goals.
The reverse case is a reminder that history tilts the odds rather than deciding them. Carlos Baleba missed one league game injured for Brighton in 2025/26, then missed August to early October at Manchester United with an ankle injury. He made his league debut off the bench against Tottenham on 10 October and has started the two games since, against Leeds and Bournemouth: three appearances and 177 minutes. Meanwhile the man Brighton signed to replace him, Chema Andrés, had a goal and an assist inside his first two games.
And one muscle injury doesn't make a trend. Christos Tzolis, who moved from Club Brugge to Arsenal, has a hamstring injury and has missed Arsenal's league games of 18 and 24 October. It is the kind of case that gets blamed on the step up, but across hundreds of moves the step up isn't where muscle injuries come from.
For how all 19 moves are going, see Summer Signings, Second Verdict and the first read in Summer Signings, Early Verdict.
The Bottom Line
A signing's injury record comes with him. Players who missed 10 or more league games the season before missed almost twice as many in their first season at the new club as players with a clean record, and only around a third became regulars. But they were just as good when they played, and the move itself didn't add muscle injuries: per hour, players who changed league got them at the same rate as players who stayed. The real risk sits in the player's history and the depth behind him, which is exactly what a recruitment department can check before it signs.
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