Forest’s B-Team are giving blood twice a week, in a trial its makers say could keep players going into their 40s

Nottingham Forest have started a trial of a new blood test that aims to warn when a player is becoming more likely to get injured, and the scientists behind it think it could one day keep footballers playing well into their 40s.

Nottingham Forest are working with Entourage, a biotechnology company from Glasgow, on a 12-week study. It starts with the club’s 25-player men’s B-Team squad, whose blood will be analysed twice a week.

The news comes after the first team went into the international break on a high, beating Manchester City 3-1 at the City Ground, as covered in our Nottingham Forest 3-1 Man City report.

How does the Forest blood test work?

The samples let researchers track thousands of proteins and build a picture of how each player responds to training, matches, injury and recovery. The science behind it is called proteomics, the study of proteins, and the trial is backed by funding from Scottish Enterprise.

The results will be looked at alongside the information the club already collects on training, workload and clinical data. The aim is to find out whether certain patterns can point to a higher risk of non-contact soft tissue injuries, the hamstring and muscle problems that wreck so many seasons.

Researchers will follow blood markers linked to inflammation and immune function. They will also look at protein signals tied to senescent cells, sometimes called “zombie cells”, which have stopped dividing but stay in the body and can add to inflammation. The study will track how those signals change after an injury and during recovery.

Why hamstrings matter so much

The numbers explain why clubs are interested. UEFA research found hamstring injuries alone made up one in five days lost to injury in 2021/22, double their share two decades earlier. Separate research across English professional football found a median absence of 19 days for a hamstring injury.

What did Forest and Entourage say?

Professor Patrick Gunning, Entourage’s chief executive and co-founder, was careful not to overclaim. “One of the questions we are trying to answer is whether there are signals in the blood that could indicate an increased risk of a non-contact injury,” he said. “That is something we need to investigate through the study.”

He was bolder about where it could lead. “If athletes and their clubs can track factors they previously could not see, and use that information to look after themselves, I think we could see a larger proportion continuing to compete professionally well into their 40s.”

He also believes it could show why players on similar workloads need different recovery. “If one player’s inflammation remains much higher than another’s after a match, that could help the medical team consider whether they need a different recovery approach,” he said.

Dimitrios Kalogiannidis, head of medical at Forest, said: “We are deeply committed to evidence-led player care. We believe in the importance of building a more robust biological profile of each player, so we’re pleased to be taking part in this research study that could benefit Nottingham Forest and the wider game for years to come.”

Could it change the transfer market too?

Entourage talk about “Moneyball for biodata”, with biological information one day sitting next to performance stats when clubs judge a player’s long-term availability and transfer value. The study will also build a baseline for professional footballers, adding to the company’s existing data on thousands of people aged 18 to 96.

“In European football, for example, where clubs own registrations, we could see players identified with the potential to go right to the top of the game,” Gunning said. “Similarly, we may see smaller clubs picking up bargains on players perceived to be injury risks.”

That is a big claim for a 12-week trial, but player value is never far from the conversation at the City Ground, with Eintracht Frankfurt coming back for Arnaud Kalimuendo in January.

Forest blood test: worth watching

Nobody should expect a blood sample to end hamstring injuries. The trial is small, it starts with the B-Team, and its first job is simply to find out whether the signals exist at all.

But if it works, the club that helped prove it will have a head start. Every Premier League side loses points to soft tissue injuries each season, and anything that tells a medical team to rest a player a week early is worth a lot more than the cost of a test tube.