According to the Daily Mail, Arsenal is among a list of clubs who are interested in signing Samuel Umtiti; the FC Barcelona defender, who is reported to have fallen down the pecking order, due to his constant struggles with injuries and form. This is the type of story that will excite an average Arsenal fan, majorly due to the fact that our team needs serious defensive re-enforcement at the moment, but as a club that has been unlucky with injuries to our players, do we need another injury prone player?
For the past ten seasons or more, we have been undone in the premiership by injuries to our players, especially when we needed them. A football club relies on a large number of playing personals to run its football campaign. A club has a first eleven and they have back-up players who can be called upon to fill in for another player; in such situation, the back-up player must be fit, mentally and physically prepared and be ready to do everything to impress the gaffer.
Arsenal has a large squad of players who can help the team fight for trophies on all fronts. Our problem as a team has not been lack of players but lack of quality players and lots of injury prone players. Our right back for example, is a quality player but he is never fit. He has made the right back totally his own yet because he has been unable to remain fit enough, to make the position permanently his. Last transfer window, we bought a certain left back from a club in Scotland. He came to us injured; we still accepted him and nurtured him to fitness. At a point, we felt he was truly done with his injury and ready to play for us but not quite long after he began playing for us, he got injured again. Like his previous injury, this current one will keep him away from football for a long time. With Chambers suffering a long term injury and the lack of plenty options in the team, what we should be looking at right now, is a player who can remain fit enough to help the team win games.
Samuel Umtiti is a world class player; he has won trophies both at club and national team level but he has serious issues with injuries. Right from his days in Lyon till now that he is at Barcelona, he has been battling with a bad knee injury problem or muscle or hamstring injury. These injury problems make him miss a lot of games. No matter how good a footballer you are, if you are the type that suffers constant injury problems, you will eventually be asked to leave. No club wants to retain a good player who hardly plays and often gets injured.
Don’t get me wrong please, Umtiti is a world class defender and having him in a club like Arsenal, will go a long way to helping our defence. This however, can only happen if he remains uninjured and fit enough to make an impact. We don’t need another injury prone player please. We are Arsenal and we are proud.
Sylvester Kwentua