It could turn out to be the most important piece of transfer business done by Arsene Wenger for Arsenal in many a long year and the good news, Gooners, is that we have already done it. In fact it was done about a year ago and I do not mean the transfer of Alexis Sanchez from Barcelona although that was a brilliant signing.
I am talking about Shad Forsythe, the man the boss brought to north London after he spent 10 years working with the Germany national team. His task was clear but far from easy; sort out the injury problems hammering the Gunners every season. So has he managed it?
Well judging from a report in The Mirror which gives the stats on his first season with Arsenal, you would have to say that he has.
The number of player days lost to injury fell from 2472 in the previous season to a much better 1834 last year, a drop of around 25 percent. While some may point to us still suffering with long injury lay offs to the likes of Giroud and Wilshere, the stats show that the bulk of our injury problems were in the early stage of the season and it was always going to take some time for Forsyth and his methods to have an effect.
Plus we had a lot of players not fully fit when they came back from the World Cup and quite a few of our injury problems were the impact variety and there is nothing the fitness expert can do to stop a thug from Stoke launching Debuchy into an advertising board or to stop the young Man United defender McNair going studs up into Wilshere’s ankle.
The muscle injuries are what he can have an effect on and it says a great deal that we only had 11 of these after January compared to 24 up until then. And right now it looks like Arsenal will head into the new season with an almost completely injury free squad.
So as long as the American can keep up the good work, and with Arsenal having brought in a couple more experts this summer to work with him I think he will, is he the one piece of transfer business that will see Arsenal once again lift the Premier League trophy?
No….it will NEVER.
No, this one player playing with………….
………………………………………
Bellerin/Debuchy..Per/Chambers..Kos/Gabriel..Monreal/Gibbs
………………..Coq/Arteta..Cazorla/Rambo……………..
Ox/Welbeck………Ozil/Rosicky/Jack…..Sanchez/Wellington
…………………………Giroud/Walcott……………………………..
……..for the majority of season with few injuries will be what wins us the league.
Transfer window btings out the worst articles I swear.
Please let’s be real here. No club can escape injuries, it’s a matter of when and as it stands the reason you have QUALITY depth is to minimize the effect that injuries have on the quality of the starting team.
Last season was a prime example of what can happen when you have key injured players out so why not address the lack of depth? Arsenal are expected to be competitive in 4 competitions, 50 + games, so why have no recognized back up DM, why not simply get a better CF? What happens if Coquelin gets injured, What happens if Giroud gets injured?
Balance is one thing but to not address holes in the squad but to not address the holes in the squad is asking for trouble.
Fair enough though, the window closes in overa month, plenty of time. But as I have said before I think players stand more to benefit from having a good pre season than to wait last minute for transfers and a good amount of the options that could improve our squad are gone.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
It is not about escaping injuries it is about being better prepared so we don’t get and healing faster.
Also….holes? Really…?
I mean the D love to sign Benzema or Carvalho (even if injured) in order to add depth and provide complete titi on but…do we have holes…?
*I d love to sign Benz and Carvalho
The problem is that you’re looking at the recovery bit alone. What I’m referring to is the player who replaces the injured. If Coquelin gets injured and his recovery time goes from 2 months to 5 weeks that’s great, but the question still remains, who replaces Coquelin in that time?
Are you actually saying that flamini and arteta are so terrible they can’t cover coq for a month? They are premier league level players and would certainly walk into most pl teams, so they can do the job against the less established teams. I know we all want better than them but let’s not act like our bench is made up of championship players.
What have you smoked Conman? Flamini and Arteta are so terrible they can’t cover coq for a month? They are premier league level players and would certainly walk into most pl teams, so they can do the job against the less established teams.
YES THEY ARE, ´CAUSE IF LE COG GET´S INJURED FOR A MONTH LET´S SAY IN MARCH WHEN WE ARE PLAYING CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PLAY OFF´S STAGE AGAINST TOP EUROPEAN TEAMS, THEY CAN´T COPE, MAYBE AGAINST AFC BOURNEMOTH, ASTON VILLA, ETC AND AT HOME, BUT THAT´S IT!!!!!!!
Are so oblivious to suggest an injury, loss of form, fatigue, suspension Coquelin may get will fortuitously fall against lesser teams that Arteta/Flam “can do a job against”?
So if Coquelin is out for a month at Xmas and we play Chelsea/City away and United at home you’re happy as larry with either Arteta or Flam anchoring in those matches…
You are completely missing the point. Fitness experts and physios PREVENT INJURIES, not just speed up recovery.
Arsenal had 2.5x more injuries than Chelsea on average every week. That’s the equivalent of having 10 Arsenal injuries to Chelsea’s 4 every week. This is not some arbitrary number, this is a huge difference.
You guys think that adding another 2 players is more important than taking the injuries down to the same level but mathematically that is simply not the case.
We can sign all the physios we want, if we don’t sign more quality players to add to the squad depth and strength, the physios will not be able to do NOTHING when our players get injured.
They are not miracle workers. They do not heal injuries by the snap of a finger. They are just there to aid in recovery.
If a player is out for 6 months…they are out for 6 months. Physios cannot help at this point.
Only thing that can help is the quality of the replacement to take the injured player’s place.
E.g If we signed Schneiderlin and he got injured for 6 weeks…well guess what? Coquelin is there.
If we had Benzema or Cavani or Lacazette and they get injured, then Giroud or Walcott take his place.
The ability to rotate the squad when needed and also maintain the same quality of football can only be aided by signing more quality players rather than signing more physios.
But you have to admit that our injury record is just ridiculous compared to other teams….adding a physio reduced it and it showed
For me injuries along with a psychological barreñier are two major issues at arsenal
It doesn’t change anything. Players will still get injured and there is nothing physios can do to stop it. Injuries happen in a variety of ways. It could even happen at home or in training or uncompetitive circumstances. Its one of the things that cannot be controlled. It happens.
What can be controlled is signing quality players to replace injured players or potential injured players, make for effective rotation and to ensure a maintenance in the quality of the football during rotation.
To compete at the highest level today (and I am not talking about 4th and a domestic cup and making R16 in champions league) and win the EPL and win the CL or make it far we need a squad with quality in depth not just numbers to for depth like we do with Arteta, Flamini and the likes.
You are missing the point man. It is about being better prepaa ed and healing faster.
I am all for signing a dm and a cf.
It is not enough reason to depend on that and not sign quality players.
Reagan again buddy…I did say I want us to sign players…but these are two different subject …one doesn’t rule out the other
To Gigi2, you are right, I quote “injuries along with a psychological barrier are two major issues at arsenal”. Injuries are handled 25€% better now, that´s improvement.
How to unlock the psychological barrier:
Buy more players like Petr Čech, ´cause he is used winning and players like him are excellent addition to our squad mentally and he´s still a TOP-5 goalie in the world (imo). We need before the season starts, rather sooner than later, that new players (DM and CF) can adapt oneself to our playing system and players. DM and CF who are available and have won major European trophies in big leagues are: DM´s Sven Bender (Dortmund), Javi Martínez (Bayern München), CF Karim Benzema (Real), Robert Lewandowski (Bayern München), but I wouldn´t say no to Alexandre Lacazette (Lyon) ´cause imo he has bright future and comes cheaper now than the season 2016-2017 or joker card Zlatan, ´cause in every team has won the league and he can play the 2 seasons at top level when Wenger´s contract ends up (hopefully). With promised £70M, minus £10M (Petr Čech) + selling, letting out Poldi, Cambell, Diaby etc. the transfer money and saved wages we can get 2 of those above mentioned. UGH, I have spoken.
Fair point. Cech is a huge assert b cuz of that. That’s why I D would like Benz for example
You know personally these are my sentiments exactly but a lot of people equate it to being less of an Arsenal supporter, I love my club but something I always aim for is being objective and I sincerely do not believe Arsenal will win any major competition with this squad without reinforcements. This is my opinion of course and it could very well be wrong but I think over the course of a season, we need more than Giroud and Welbeck or Coquelin and Arteta.
I’m sorry but that’s just how I see it
Well….your team has already won three major trophies with an even smaller squad cause we added cech….
Unless of course you don’t consider FA cup and community shield as major trophies and u r only referring to EPL and u l I which case I’d disagree still…but less
Major trophies are EPL and CL. They are more coveted than the FA Cup.
Winning the FA cup for the past 2 years was more relieving of the shame of the trophy drought than it felt me with pride.
The only trophies that can heal never winning the CL and 11 years of not winning the EPL are the CL and EPL. If we one the FA cup 3 more times it wouldn’t generate much satisfaction for me.
BS, the fa cup is major throphy. Yes pl and cl titles are bigger but the fa cup is next in line. Please do not undermine the club’s achievement.
First of all I don’t regard the community shield as a major trophy. It is a charity event and has nothing attached to it to warrant a major sense of pride in. If I’m talking about trophies in terms of importance it would be the CL, PL, CWC/Super Cup, FA Cup, League Cup the Charity Shield.
The FA Cup has attached with it the prestige of being football’s oldest club competition and the chance for lower league teams to face England ‘s best but for any club in the top 4 the FA Cup is usually 3rd on the list of priorities and is usually bumped up when any other chance of silverware is gone. City and Chelsea weren’t overly fussed with dropping out of it because at that time they were separated by alphabetical order and the League and CL were of a bigger concern.
Moreover it only bolsters my previous point as we had key players rested and coming back from injury then, City and Chelsea had players injured, suspended or away in other competitions
Fa cup is bigger than the super cup and club world cup, the super is just the charity shield for ecl and europa, I don’t get how you can put so much value on one and not the other given that they are both curtain raisers. I guess you think think less of the fa cup now that the club has won it, you won’t hear chelski talk like that about the tin cup, nor did we hear scousers or the scum say the tin cup doesn’t mean anything. They loved how they were winning while we had nothing, now that we have something it’s not good enough. If chelski win the charity shield, they’ll celebrate it like a major title but when we win we let everyone piss on our fire.
So I guess that you would have said the same if you were s chelsea fan the year they won the eruopa league?
Or is tha a major trophy?
(Remember in order to play in it we have to either finish 5th or Drop out the group stage in 3 Rd place of thenucl)
I get all that but why would Giroud, Walcott or Coquelin be waiting in the wings to pick up the scraps? If they are not good enough to start for us then surely they would want to go elsewhere for their own personal reasons and to continue their careers. It is easy to build these teams with 1st choice, 2nd choice and a 3rd choice to satiate our top trump approach to these things. Easy on paper but we all tend to ignore the knock-on effects. Barca, Real and Bayern have lots of flexibility in their 25 man squads but even they can’t just collect every player they want and bench them. Barca have no recognised CF in their squad if Suarez gets injured – they have Pedro covering the whole of their front 3. If Benzema gets cropped they have only Hernandez as a recognised CF and he is a loan player. Bayern have Pizzaro as CF back-up.
Excellent points.
So what? What is your point here? Do you even know where your argument leads to or end? You don’t like or want competition in the squad? You are happy with Giroud and Coquelin not having better players in front of them to provide them with competition and boost our title chances? What is the point of your argument…you don’t want Arsenal to strengthen? Before you counter…think and ask yourself, where do I want my argument to lead to? Does it lead to a conclusion where its in the clubs best interest or yours as a supporter? I do not understand some of you. You want the club to win trophies yet do not want the club to take decisive measures to win. You want the stagnation and prolonged mediocrity to continue? Do you think we will be able to keep hold of the likes of Sanchez without winning major trophies? How contradictory can you get? If a player has quality and potential…by all means support. But if season after season a player is costing you wins and points and you still want him at the club or to be a regular starter then you need a re-evaluation of what supporting your club means.
You just made my point for me though. Pedro, Pizzaro and Hernandez are good backups. There is less of a fear because there is quality in depth and competition not just depth and numbers like Arsenal have. Its not like Suarez and Benzema stay injured the whole season.
Giroud will make a good backup and at this point I think it should be justified that he can stay on the bench and do that job.
For 3 seasons he has been given the chance to be the main striker and he has failed horribly. He doesn’t score enough and he isn’t exciting to watch either. And if he wants to leave then by all means. Lets see which top clubs will be breaking their banks to sign him….none.
Read again without emotions and you ll se the points
No emotion here, just cold-blooded anger at mediocrity and its supporters.
Now is when I show any form of care. When the season starts and we did nothing significant in the transfer window and I see the mediocrity continue, I will just accept that we are not a big team anymore again. I will not expect much from this team. I have predicted our season 4 years in a row now and have been correct. I will watch the games with apathy like I always do for the last 4 years.
Once the transfer window is over I will know if we are competing again for 4th or we actually want to be champions and not some fake hope wenger feeds to people who eat it up like you do.
Anyone remember the last time ‘makesense’ made any sense? He says he’s watching the games with apathy but doesn’t seem to consider locating to another team and, far more importantly, another board. Maybe they will accept his incessant whining and negativity. Personally, I’m sick to death of it.
Well if you say so…but I see some comments here of people being “objective”…being I jetñctive is considering all the facts and taking out names…..still think you Re a little emotional but hey let’s spree to disagree
‘Giroud will make a good backup and at this point I think it should be justified that he can stay on the bench and do that job.’
That…… That was Jonestown’s exact point. What possible motivation could Giroud have for wanting to stay then?
If we sign for arguments sake the best DM money could buy, why would Coquelin, Ramsey and Wilshere who all have the talent to justifiably lock down a spot in a top-teams first XI, why would they want to stay on not getting first-team opportunities when they’re at crucial stages of their development?
If the argument for an upgrade in quality is being put forward, then sure it obviously has it’s merits. And yes, this ‘ruthlessness’ in the few names that would surely result in exits could be an extremely positive thing. But when people are saying we should sign X-player who contributed well last season while playing every single game for ‘depth’ sure, on paper it looks great, but a lot of players hit patches of form that may not necessarily be given that opportunity here, as there may be someone else in the squad who hits the ground running and contributes straight away…
If Coquelin, Arteta, Flamini, Wilshere, Ramsey, AOC, Ozil, Cazorla, Rosicky are all fit and firing, I think you’re sorely mistaken if you think anything but a truly world-class midfielder would be looking at those names and not potentially evaluating their first-team opportunities.
I apologize if i’m speaking for you in the wrong context Jonestown, but I think he was trying to point out that these ‘squad’ players that people seem to want so badly may not be as stoked at the competition within our team as we would be… Sure there’s arguments for a quality upgrade with a few players, but a few may have to leave before anyone comes in.
Precisely. Jonestowns primary argument when depth is concerned is the idea a player on the bench won’t want to stay, going as far to say a player would prefer to go elsewhere and play each week than fight for a starting place at Arsenal.
Fabian Delph epitomizes modern footballers, and serves as an example that the idea of competition at big clubs is NOT a deterrent. If Coquelin or Giroud is benched by someone better they’ll stay and fight because of prestige, but also because of money. Who’s giving Giroud 90k a week other than Arsenal? He wouldn’t be #1 at any of the top 10 teams in Europe, the same for players like Coquelin/Monreal/Per which is why they stay and fight it out.
Credit to those who do (Monreal), but if a player wants to leave because he’s not a guaranteed starter, I struggle to see how it’s an issue losing a player with such a weak mentality.
Good points however it isn’t the ideal situation. Madrid and Bayern both suffered last season due to a lack of depth. After Madrid won the CWC their squad took a drop in form and they fell away tremendously, Ancelotti’s lack of rotation and lack of an out and out DM were the two primary factors in that drop, getting rid of Alonso was one of the worst decisions he made.
Bayern’s injury crisis was well documented and it was especially because they had no depth to replace Robben, Ribery and a host of others that they did poorly vs Barcelona.
Chelsea also had a big drop off in form after January, mainly because Oscar and Fabregas lost form and Costa, Remy and Drogba were injured as well. Costa had 7 goals and 7 assists up to to January, he got 1 assist in the remaining games till May. That paid a big part in their FA Cup and CL exit.
Fabregas had 15 assists up to that point, he then had 3 up till May. Chelsea’s situation was even less ideal as they had Hazard, Terry, Ivanovic, Fabregas and Matic all playing 35+ games. Terry played every single minute.
Bayern and Chelsea had enough quality as well as a sizeable enough lead that it cost them nothing. Madrid were as fortunate, they won nothing. My point being that none of these situations were ideal and were circumstances marginally different the losses could have been worse. Reversibly it was clearly visible the impact having a fit starting 11 has on performance. However it is foolhardy to expect players to keep up the same level of performance week in week out for 50+ games especially given our play style.
By the way that should be Oscar not Costa
Physio are there also to prevent our players in get injured as many times as they have by preparing them better.
All the best to mr shad forsythe and the medical team, in keeping our “gunners” fit, healthy and also keep our injuries down to a record low in the coming new season and beyond! Coyg!
He’s already started to work his magic, have you noticed how the players came back quicker last year. Ozil and giroud should have only played in may under the old team.
One signing to win us the league? Unless it’s Messi, no.
A sign of progress
if Mr invincible himself said we need 4 players more to compete, who I’m I to say we have a perfect squad already, Henry has said many times we need a top striker and Karim is not a bad option, but I’m 200% sure Wenger wouldn’t sign him cause: 1. he is gay, and obsessed with handsome players. 2. we have the euros at the end of the season and he wanna push his players for a spot 3. Wenger is just a stubborn human! I wonder how his daughter is coping with him
Lmaof, he’s gay? You mean the guy that had an affair with a French supermodel?