Arsenal fans could be forgiven for thinking that the football gods have got something against us, at least when it comes to the injury problems suffered by our players at least. But surprisingly enough, we have not had it the worst in the Premier League this season.
There was a report this week claiming that Manchester United have actually been the club with the most injuries and they have had it bad, although the number of injuries does not tell the whole story. It is the number of days lost to injury that really matters and, of course, the importance of the players in question.
As revealed by injuryleague.com it is actually Newcastle that have had the biggest problem this season, while the Gunners have improved from last year and are only fourth in the table. But what really stands out for me is the difference between us and Chelsea who are bottom of the table with just 77 points. Our own total of 219 is almost three times that of the champions elect and when you consider that we have lost key players like Giroud, Ozil, Ramsey, Koscielny and Chamberlain, there is a very good argument there for injuries costing us the title.
As the table for last season on physioroom.com shows, Arsenal topped the table with a whopping 1716 points and it is perhaps very telling that the three teams that finished above us fared much better. Liverpool had about half as many problems with 997, Man City had 929 and Chelsea once again were relatively untouched with just 556.
That cannot be a coincidence can it?
Eva has magic touch. .
Then rectify it. If we had a one single season plagued by injury, I may say we were unlucky. If this has been going on for the past decade, surely something is wrong with the way we do things. The training intensity, buying less injury prone players, knowing when to rotate is all part and parcel of managing injuries well. Wenger needs to review these
Mourihno rarely rotates players, just check out the minutes played by his 1st 11, he has a favoured team and he sticks with them unless injured BUT they get injured a lot less than we do.
Well it was a case of tough luck once again this season, could u imagine if we didn’t have any injuries this season? Well if our key players wasnt set back with injuries, and with some poor results, who knows we could have been top of the pile! All i can say is that even now im praying for a better start for us in the new season! May our players remain injury free and we put together an unbeaten 20 game run! Wow! What a start that would be! Up the arsenal! Coyg!
Wenger buys weak players that are very susceptible to injury. Its that simple,, i’m not saying buy stoke city players that are rugby type of players but something in the middle. When you buy an ozil type of player then what you expect.
Gotta agree with tubby, this isn’t an isolated incident, we always set the record for most players out injured. This goes on season after season. It needs to be sorted out. 3/4 of Chelsea’s backline consists of players approaching or over 30. Yet Terry and Ivanovic have played every single league game without injury.
This has to go down to things.
Squad depth
Medical team
If Arsenal are truly to participate on all fronts then we have to get better squad players. One unknown and often unrealized thing about our run this season is that we had most of our players back fit playing 1 game a week out of most competitions. Players like Ozil, Giroud etc were out for months and rested. Meanwhile Sanchez has experienced burnout.
People need to realize having all your players fit early in the season means they get tired near the end. As a result we HAVE TO get a more complete squad to be challenging on all fronts.
People say Chelsea had it easy with injuries but how much tougher would it have been for us had our players hit a near season end lull in form while we had CL/League/League Cup/ FA Cup commitments.
Gotta see the big picture. The medical team needs re assessment and we need a stronger squad