Glasgow spin-out Entourage AI trials blood test to predict injuries at Nottingham Forest
What's the deal? University of Glasgow spin-out Entourage AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has partnered with Premier League club Nottingham Forest on a 12-week trial testing whether blood tests can flag early biological signs that a player is becoming more injury-prone. The Glasgow-headquartered biotech, which launched this year from the University's Kelvin Campus, will study Forest's 25-player men's B Team.
How does it work? Players will provide blood samples twice weekly. Researchers will analyse thousands of proteins per sample and compare the results with training, workload, and clinical data to see whether specific biological signatures link to a higher risk of non-contact soft tissue injuries.
Why now? Researchers believe it is the first high-frequency plasma proteomics study of its kind in professional sport. It arrives as clubs look to biological monitoring to supplement existing workload and GPS tracking.
What's the endgame? The study targets one of football's costliest problems. Research across European football has found hamstring injuries account for roughly one in five injury-related absence days, with English studies reporting median absences of almost three weeks per injury.
What could go wrong? This is an early feasibility test, not a proven product. Comparable efforts remain small and exploratory; a season-long saliva-biomarker study lacked validation against clinical outcomes, and a 2026 blood-based injury score reported only preliminary results.
The signal: The trial reflects growing appetite for biological data in elite sport, but its value will hinge on whether protein changes reliably link to actual injuries — enough to guide decisions beyond the tools clubs already use.
Read more: gla.ac.uk
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
