I am writing this article before Arsenal take on Olympiacos in the final Champions League group game. As well as hoping that the Gunners can pull off a massive rescue operation and get through to the knockout phase, I will be crossing my fingers that no more of the Arsenal first team are added to the injury list after the match.
That injury list is clearly an issue and not a helpful one to our hopes in Europe or the Premier League and after it just about doubled in the month of November at the same time as our results hit a wall, a lot of Arsenal fans as well as those critics in the media always ready to gloat over any Arsenal misfortune were quick to lay the blame squarely at the feet of Arsene Wenger and his transfer policy of, well not making any transfers.
But there is evidence that this is not really fair on the Frenchman. After all, injuries are a part of the game and the numbers show that the club has improved the situation since last year. People will still point to the injury problems we have got now, with seven players out of action, and say that they could have been avoided if Wenger had spent more money on reinforcements in the summer.
But could they really? The injury list on physioroom.com suggests not, because no club has spent more money than Man United over the last couple of years and their story is worse than ours, with nine first teamers in the treatment room. Two other big spenders are Man City and Liverpool and they have exactly the same number of players injured as Arsenal.
The problem is that no matter how big a squad you have, the pressure of winning means you often play your best XI anyway. So can we stop blaming Wenger and the Arsenal medical staff and accept that an injury or seven is just part of the game?