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?