Premier League injury expert, Ben Dinnery, says Arsenal has to be reasonable with the workload Kieran Tierney is given after he returned from a long-term injury.
The Scotsman has been out of action for around three months after he had surgery done to fix a major problem in his knee.
The injury-prone left-back is fit to play again, but he was on the pitch for only 30 minutes in Arsenal’s friendly against Nurnberg.
Some fans were concerned that he didn’t stay on the pitch for long and some will probably think he has aggravated the problem.
However, Dinnery says the Gunners must be careful with managing his return.
He tells Football Insider: “This is absolutely not the time to be taking any unnecessary risks. We need to understand the capabilities of the player in terms of what he can do physically and weigh that up with the demands of his position and the team.
“These decisions are never taken in isolation. There will have been a collective approach before they reached the final decision to do things this way.
“That 30-minute reintegration with the team is always a good starting point. That can gradually be upped as we approach game week one.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Tierney is one of our most important players and we need him to be fit for much of this campaign if we are to make progress.
He needs to be placed on a special training plan until he returns to full fitness.
Hopefully, he will be fit enough to play more often in this campaign than he did in the last one.
Tierney is the quality of player we need on the pitch and far more often than he is. We cant replace him when he is injured and the problem needs sorting one way or another. He has been constantly on the treatment table and that is not good. I worry he wont last more than a few games because he seems brittle. A pity because he is one of our very special players and we dont have too many of them. What we do seem fragile, Tomiasu, ESR, Partey and Tierney are out far too many times.
I’ve always wondered over the years what it is about Arsenal’s training methods that might lead to so many injuries.
I look at people like Partey who hardly missed a game at Atletico but now he’s injured a lot when he comes here. It seems to happen with a fair few players over a long time, he’s just one example.
It’s been going on too long just to be luck or coincidence?
Good question. Very strange.
Yes we need to play Tavares more as we will likely have to!
I think Tierney is over rated. He is good at going to the final line, or close, and make a final cross. But most of the time the ball lands far away from where a forward can capitalize the cross.
He’s still good, but not a star.
Tavares is not mature enough to replace him now (let alone he has a totally different way to be a prolific left back).
But this season we urgently need a back up for Tierney that can keep the team going on with chance to CL. Tavares is not that man yet, but has potential.
Get a ready back-up of Tierney and loan Tavares.