The Arsenal curse returns to haunt us yet again

Around 15 games into the season and half the Arsenal squad is injured already?‏ by KM

Okay, so whats up lately? We car-crashed out of the CoC, but there is a bigger issue. Just look at the injury list of outfield players. Jack Wilshere, Danny Welbeck, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott, Mikel Arteta and Tomas Rosicky.

The injuries of Theo and the Ox were a highlight of poor medical decisions. Same with Ramsey. But it’s not just that, those players are regularly injured. Even if they all have the talent of Messi, if they don’t play they aren’t worth anything.

Why did we keep Arteta? I mean he gave us two good seasons, I appreciate him, but if we have title aspirations he just doesn’t fit the bill. He doesn’t have the legs, and he is injury prone. At 30+ Wenger used to give players not more than a one year extension and that made players better than Arteta leave us in the past. What changed now?

Same question goes to Flamini, who despite his 2 goals against Spurs, fails to impress me as a DM. And at that age he is not getting any better too. I really feel sad for Rosicky too, who wanted to leave, will probably play ZERO games for us and we are wasting one of the last years of his career.

Then we get to the even more painful part of the “British core”, that cannot sustain 5 games together. Theo was just deployed as our main striker, now he’ll miss three games of huge importance to our entire season. He is one of the top 3 earners and the club, but if he cannot get at least 30 games a season, his goal return is unlikely to reach 20.

The Ox is another one full of potential, but when he is on the brink of getting into the squad, he’s out again, and when Ramsey comes back, there will be no place for Alex. But Aaron himself is a painful topic. We saw glimpses of his talent 2 seasons back, but his injury then cost us a downfall and he’s out again now.

We’ll be hoping to survive our next three games, without being out of the UCL and 5-6 points behind City in the league table. The question is why didn’t we foresee this in the summer? Why didn’t we ship out the players that don’t cut it for fresh replacements?

We don’t want 30 million players all the time. Coquelin cost nothing and we all love him. Why didn’t Wenger sit down with the medical team and look at what they think about how much each player should be played?

Giroud played 2-3 seasons as our only striker and he’s rarely injured. Alexis is immensely overplayed, yet he is still playing every game. Santi is 31 and he’s playing all the games too. I mean work with the players fitness and try to balance it out, or bring in replacements for when moments like this happen.

Last year, we finished the season strong, because we had a fully fit squad. We had options, but now who’s gonna play on the right against Swansea? Campbell? We’ll move Bellerin forward and introduce Debuchy? Ship Santi on the left, move Alexis on the right and introduce Flamini?

Wenger said himself after the Sheffield game, “We don’t have a big enough squad for all the competitions”. Why is that? Could we have done something about this?

I will not buy excuses again. We have to survive this period and hope that Aaron, Theo and Alex will be back after the internationals (which they will hopefully skip).

Cheers.

Konstantin

Tags Ramsey The x Walcott

23 Comments

  1. We had an excellent chance of overcoming the curse during the summer transfer window. But we blew it.
    I hope we pull through this though.
    Gunner for life.

      1. I am curious why we kept with Rosicky? Judging by his comments earlier in the last spring, he clearly wanted more playing time. Knowing his record with injuries and ripe age of 35, it baffles me.

        Don’t get me wrong, I love Rosicky and the way he plays, but he was always going to be a bit-part player this season (clearly a situation he himself didn’t want to be in). And now, of course, he got injured before August (?) and is out until January (who didn’t see that coming eh?).

        It was only a matter of time when we would have this discussion, no matter how well are we playing at the moment. Theo, OX, Ramsey injured within a week. Welbeck, Wilshere, Rosicky injured before the season even started. But we got no reinforcements. Oddly enough these 6 players are our longest injured players, season after season.

        Our backups for Coquelin, Arteta and Flamini, are not the best options out there to fill in. In addition to that, they are both somewhat injury prone. Knowing our history with injuries WITH these aforementioned players, I fail to see why we didn’t get an outfield player or two in the summer.

        1. @juhislihis
          Nice comments buddy.
          In summary, seeing all these signs, the “Arsenal Curse” was a matter of “When”…not “If”.
          I really do hope we pull through this rough patch.

          1. World-renowned fitness coach Raymond Verheijen says Arsene Wenger must be held responsible for Arsenal’s poor injury record.

            The Gunners have been blighted by injuries in recent seasons and are currently without EIGHT senior stars after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott joined the ever-growing casualty list at the north London club.

            Verheijen, who has worked with a host of leading clubs across Europe on the conditioning of players, has criticised Wenger’s training methods in the past – and he told talkSPORT on Thursday that the Frenchman’s ‘outdated’ approach is costing the club dear.

            Speaking on the Hawksbee and Jacobs show, the outspoken Dutchman said:  “If you look at the facts, what you see is that Arsenal are the number one by far in terms of injuries in the last decade in the Premier League.

            “In particular, you have this group of young players who are consistently injured for months, season after season. We are talking about Ramsey, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wilshere and also in the past Sagna, Van Persie and Fabregas.

            “Young players are getting injured every season for weeks or months and that is a very worrying pattern.

            “In the ’90s, Arsene Wenger came from France to England and he introduced revolutionary methods – methods that people were not familiar with yet in the UK. At that stage he was a revolutionary coach.

            “He has been applying those methods for ten, twenty years and when you apply the same methods for twenty years, at some stage people will catch you up and they will develop further and then they will be ahead of you. From a revolutionary coach, you have all of a sudden become an old-school coach because you stuck to methods from twenty years ago.

            “The main reason for injures in football is accumulation of fatigue because when you accumulate fatigue over time your brain has less control over your body and your coordination goes down and then you are vulnerable to injuries.

            “The question is: who is the main reason for fatigue? The main reason for the fatigue is the fitness football coach because he is responsible for the planning of training. Arsene Wenger is responsible for fatigue and injuries and the medical staff can only cure the problem.”

            1. Theo’s injury this time was 100% Wenger’s fault. Have you fellas heard what happened? When OX got injured, Theo went to warm up. He didn’t make a single run before Wenger called him up to substitute him right away for OX.

              And how OX pulled a hamstring in less than 4 minutes? There are only few causes for pulled hamstrings:

              – fatigue or recurring injury if not completely healed
              – inadequate warm up or poor stretching
              – muscle weakness or improper footwear

              Pulled hamstrings are not rocket science, there is always a reason for them. It can’t be because of OX’s fatigue since he hasn’t really played and has been fit for weeks. Oh and we’ve had this kind of situation before as well (Podolski last season pulled his hamstring like 10 minutes after coming on the pitch.)

              I think Theo’s and OX’s injuries happened because of the stupidity of Wenger and laziness/unprofessionalism of Oxlade-Chamberlain.

              1. Reason why I think Ramsey pulls his hammies so often is because that lad gives 100% every game and always tops the distance covered charts. But to pull a hamstring in 4 minutes, that is just.. no words for it.

                1. The Ox was seen over stretching his hamstrings in the warm up before kick off.
                  This could either mean that he felt some tightness there before hand or that he over done it with the stretches before warming up to that.
                  Confused? ?…. yeah me too ?

                  As for Walcott’s injury, yes that’s 100% Wenger’s fault! For not letting him warm up properly,
                  Don’t forget that it was a cold night ib Sheffield.

              2. @juhislihis
                I’m callin BS on this one dude…All the players warm up before the match. Even the bench sitters. It was something like 17min into the match. Not like he was sitting there for an hour or more…

    1. Yes, his articles all have the same thing in common – he’s got a hard on for Wenger…

      I love it when fans become managers, physios, bankers, etc. of our club… If we followed Konstantin’s advises, we’d be broke in 2 years. The guy wants to have 5 people cover for every position. Yes, we’ve been somewhat unlucky with some of our players’ injuries, but it’s not exactly Wenger’s fault. So chill, dude… We have a very competent manager, and he knows what he’s doing.

  2. Listen Baby Please

    A wee bit pessimistic methinks

    I don’t know officially Walcott or OX are out for (if someone could tell me I’d appreciate it) but it should not take too long.

    I have faith in our players and that our manager will make the right decisions.

    We have versatile players for such a situation and Wenger will hopefully arrange them into the right lineup

    Lets focus on beating Swansea and hope we have no more injuries.

    Hope Wilshere, Walcott, Ramsey, Rosicky, Arteta, OX and Ospina come back soon

    1. On the Arsenal website, he gives a bit of an idea about How he will handle the right hand side

      Wenger: on his right-sided options at Swansea…
      Campbell and Alex Iwobi. Santi can play there as well but he has become very important centrally. The problem sometimes is that you can destroy two departments if you move one player out. We control the ball better with Santi in the middle

      We won’t know exactly until 30mins before kickoff but we have several options

      I’m happy Wenger believes in keeping Santi in central midfield

  3. thats the disadvantage if introducing players to the big stage when they are still teens
    to become starters
    they become injury prone
    they have slowed progress in their careers
    look at what it has done to players like
    gibbs
    fabregas
    walcott
    chamberlain
    welbeck
    wilshere

  4. Why don’t we call serge gnabry back from his loan?! It will still be a choice between Campbell and him but its better than having just Campbell !

    1. Arsenal are in talks with West Bromwich,
      Regarding cutting Gnabry’s loan deal short and bringing him back to Arsenal.
      No doubt it will end up costing Arsenal a few bob £££
      ??? Serves the pennie pincher right ?

    1. please come back to earth!……….. We now have Bellerin , monreal, gabriel, ozil, carzola, walcott, ramsey, giroud mert and Le coq!

  5. Let’s calm down! If it’s Arsenal beating Swansea, Bayern Munich and Spurs we are worring about, no cause for any anxiety or panic. Arsenal will unfailingly beat those 3 teams neat and clear to all the 9 points that are going to be at stake in those 3 games. Arsenal have adequate cover for their right wing position in case of any emergency in the Gunners of, Joel Campbell and Alex Iwobi. they will come in into the fray and take control of the right wing in a way we will all marvel after those 3 up coming fixtures are played. I am assuring ever Gooner of Arsenal victories in those 3 games.

  6. Let’s calm down! If it’s Arsenal beating Swansea, Bayern Munich and Spurs we are worring about, no cause for any anxiety or paniking but let’s be confident. Arsenal will unfailingly beat those 3 teams neat and clear to all the 9 points that are going to be at stake in those 3 games. Arsenal have adequate cover for their right wing position in case of any emergency in the Gunners of, Joel Campbell and Alex Iwobi. they will come in into the fray and take control of the right wing in a way we will all marvel after those 3 up coming fixtures are played. I am assuring ever Gooner of Arsenal victories in those 3 games.

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