How do Arsenal solve our persistent injury problems? by Lagos Gooner
Ever since I started watching Arsenal, I have not known a season where we don’t suffer multiple injury problems; and this has always derailed or destroyed our season every time. I have always wished for an injury-free season but from the look of things, our injury problems don’t seem to ever end.
We began the season with a few of our players being injured; as time passed, the players started recovering from injuries but as fate would have it, we have had one or more players getting injured almost every other week. This has played a part in the bad season we have had so far. When are we going to be free from so many injuries at Arsenal?
Our game against West Ham on Monday ended in victory for us but not without our star full backs, Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin picking up injury problems. Hector Bellerin according to our coach while speaking after the game against West Ham, as reported by www.arsenal.com, picked up his own injury during the warm up prior to the match. Kieran Tierney according to Ljungberg, picked up his own injury during the match, an injury that would keep him out of the game for a long period of time.
Now, this is not good news at all and this is the type of news that gets a lot of people scared of how our season will pan out, with so many injuries to our star players. When the players keep picking up injuries, it destabilizes the team and doesn’t allow the coach to choose the players he wants, rather it forces him to re-plan his tactics, team selection and playing personell for games. Every coach wants to always have the full complement of his team to choose from; a privilege we have not enjoyed at Arsenal for a long time.
While Bellerin may be fortunate to play again soon, Tierney may be out for such a long period of time, leaving Kolasinac as the only senior left back we can currently call on to play. What if he gets injured? How do we solve this? What is really happening at Arsenal? What do we do to solve our constant injury problems?
Sylvester Kwentua
Arsenal are either unlucky for more than a decade or maybe they chose popular injury-prone players to get cheaper price
I will take Barcelona as an example. Barcelona knew the popular Ousmane Dembele had injury problems at Dortmund, yet they still purchased him and the superstar missed a lot of games as the result
I know it’s not easy to evaluate a player, but Arsenal have paid their scouts, medical staffs, managers and directors to ensure the quality of an investment. I think soccer is not Kroenke’s main interest and expertise, hence he keeps hiring wrong people at Arsenal
Look at the players who suffered most injuries for us. Wilshere,Ramsey, Walcott,Bellerin, RVP,Chamberlain all suffered badly, all these players joined arsenal at an earlish age. I think years of negligence from Wenger to adapt to the times allowed this to happen.
@Liam
Knew somebody was going to find a way to blame it all on AW… 😂😂😂
Dude, he was the manager not the physio. 😂😂😂😂
@NY_Gunner
Actually, Wenger may have been the issue, because I have read many articles down the years from physios, talking about his training methods, and the way we played. This has also been the case with Pep as well.
Add to that, the fact we know Wenger loved to keep players around forever who he knew had chronic injuries.
I think it is a combination of issues:
Buying talented players with a history of injuries; possibly because they may be cheaper
Overplaying young players
Inadequate squad depth- forces a situation where players are ”forced” to play through injury
Underestimating injury severity
Bad luck
Playing style
Is is very noticeable how some players are just constantly injured, whilst others hardly ever miss a game. Bellerin, RvP, Ramsey, Walcott, Diaby, Rosicky but damned annoying that Xhaka is hardly ever out for long, being a lump (and playing like one!). Not only older players but a number of younger players are just too frail and constantly injured. Bellerin will be gone by next season hopefully though, as he is rarely fit for long and can’t defend anyway. Worried that Tierney may be too frail too and the signs are worrying. One reason for all our injuries is that we hardly ever buy physically strong and powerful players since the demise of the Invincibles. Think about it and rack your brains to find teak tough players like Petit, Viera, Adams, Gilberto, Viera and Campbell. Wenger in his latter years always played and bought midfield dwarfs and we still have too many weedy players, with even our CB’s being far smaller than most other teams. Physical frailty equals weeds and many injuries. The evidence of a full decade of frail and small Arsenal players in general, supports my post. If you are constantly battling bigger opponents your chances of injury are higher than average. QED!
Every team needs a battering ram, or a minder or two, to do the softening up of the opposition. When Vierra and Petit left wenger tried to go all tika taka barca style, which didnt work and meant players like Rosicky and wilshire were going hammer and tongs battling more powerful midfielders. Even our center backs and right backs were more speedy and technical compared to the Stams and vidic’s for instance. We were battling bigger stronger players and most fans were calling for some strength and it never materialised. We still are and we are still getting injuries to players competing with players physically stronger than them. It put pressure on their bodies and the truth is we need a couple of bruisers to take the pressure of some of our less physical players. We seem as a club to just not like tall physical players any more, i dont know why because i think it is obvious and has been for a few years.
Reggie, Strange how it never occurred to Wenger in his last several years to buy tougher physical playrs. Esp since it was so successful for him in his first decade.
Thats where his success came, he used to like players in the middle who could first win the physical battle. I dont know why he changed and i don’t know why we are still reluctant to have a couple in the team.
You and me both Reggie. And I’d bet countless other puzzled other Gooners too don’t know WHY he changed from a policy that worked so well to one that did not.
👍 👍 👍 👍 When the Arsenal had tough strong players they never got bullied in midfield or defense. If the opposition came to play, they would play them off the park, if not they were quite prepared to get down and dirty. Character and physicality, as well as technical skill are what made the winning Arsenal squads and unfortunately have been neglected for some time.
Aguero D.Silva Stirling Mahrez Jesus B.Silva are all light weights
yet play a lot of football.
Eden Hazard is a midget
Messi is another midget but has a phenomenal number of games.
Barcelona 702 Argentina 138 Total
Messi Xavi Iniesta are all 5′ 7′ and played millions of games.
Many European countries have a stricter standard regards tackle laws.
ADU EMAN, Wrong on both Messi and Hazard. BOTH ARE SHORT BUT POWERFUL AND MUSCULAR WITH DYNAMIC POWER APLENTY! Strength is far more than just being tall. Surprised you don’t know that. There is also the heart, guts, will to win factor that teak tough players of whatever height have and scrawny weeds do not.
The Spanish league is different anyway but Hazard did have Drogba and Costa to soften people up around him. Plus obviously there are physically strong, low center of gravity players who can cope. We get light weights, or seem too.
Agree jon and Reggie, every successful team needs “enforcers”.
As gifted a footballer as Dennis Bergkamp was, he was also a tough mongrel.
@Reggie
The main thing was, once those Stam and Vidic type players got beat by a speedy and maneuverable forward or mid player, they usually stuck the boot in meaning to put him out of the game. Our stick and move style of play meant many of those straight up and down English players came out meaning to hurt us instead of playing football. Shawcross and Adams are prime examples of this…
The thing is they knew that there wouldn’t be any coming back, so it was an easy tactic.
Look Sylvester the Lagos Gooner, in as much as Arsenal could have up to six Gunners currently sidelined with various kind of injuries picking ahead of the Arsenal important big home game against Man City in the PL, these injuries suffered to these six Gunners in their recent matches in all competitions by the opposition teams will notwithstanding, stop or hinder Freddie Ljungberg, the inter,m Arsenal head coach from raising a very powerful Arsenal PL game winning team to beat Man City using both the senior Gunners and the youth Gunners in the first team squad of the club who are capable of beating Man City on Sunday at the Ems in the Pl. And if the mixed senior and youth Gunners team that he’ll put together to play in the big game raise their game up BIG in the match and also play to the incredible game playing capacity talents that are in themselves taking on Man City in the match and to not be afraid of them because of the many top quality players in their rank. But see them as another PL opponent team playing against Arsenal who if the Gunners play very very well against in the match they can beat.
Our propensity to be oft-injured is likely related to several different issues…glaring lack of viable depth in our squad for years, the nature of our sideways passing style which lolls the muscles to “sleep” so when you need to have sudden bursts of speed it’s bound to cause groin/hamstring tweaks and tears, the zonal marking scheme which leaves players more vulnerable to hard contact from their blind-spots, the fact that we have bought numerous players with well-known injury issues and then stuck with them far too long even when they can’t get on the pitch(Diaby, Ramsey, Rosicky etc…) and the country club environment that has ultimately led to the softening of the players(in American football and the NHL you will often hear the refrain that no one is ever 100% after the first week or two)…at least with guys like Rosicky and Santi you knew they gave 100% whenever they were playing and were not afraid to stick their foot in even if they just returned from a prolonged injury, unlike Walcott, Ox, Iwobi etc…it’s still amazes me that we never tried to retain Santi considering our history for always giving our players a chance to reclaim their spot in the starting 11 following an injury regardless of the length…just another short-sighted decision on the part of this “tire fire” of an organization
Honestly I don’t mind half of the squad getting injured, maybe that will force the board to grow some brains & get new players.
They’ll make the same mistake and continue to buy us injury-prone players, or players that do the bare minimum to not get injured (and are thus Shit as a result). The only way our defence improves is with Allardyce style coaching