Happy Monday to you all.
There was European action this weekend and while Aaron Ramsey and Wales have to wait for another day, Iceland have qualified for a major tournament for the very first time. They’re currently top of a group which also includes the Czech Republic, Netherlands, and Turkey, so fair play. I know there are a lot of Icelandic Gooners so congrats to you guys today.
There’s Arsenal interest tonight as Scotland face Germany with Mesut Ozil likely to be involved, while France have a friendly against Serbia and hopefully Laurent Koscielny won’t play in that one. Tomorrow night there are the England boys, and Santi Cazorla for Spain and that’s that, so fingers crossed for injury free outings for all.
Speaking of the England boys, Roy Hodgson has put a time-frame on Danny Welbeck’s absence. You’ll recall that when Arsenal announced he’d had surgery, they plumped for a completely non-specific ‘period of months’ when making that news public. However, in his comments in the wake of the 6-0 win over San Marino, the England manager declared himself worried about Welbeck’s participation in next summer’s Euros, saying:
Welbeck bothers me now. He has already been out for me since March so that’s over four months already. And now I hear it’s another six months, so I can only hope that Danny recovers a bit quicker and hits the ground running.
Whether that’s accurate or not remains to be seen, but you’ve got to imagine it’s info he’s picked up from somewhere relatively reliable rather than just making up a number. The Arsenal ‘word’ was that he’d be back by Christmas, but if it’s 6 months we’re well into next year, then there’s all the residual problems of getting match fit, finding sharpness and form, and we could be looking at pretty much writing off his entire season.
I guess that’s the worst case scenario but that’s where our minds are trained to go when it comes to Arsenal players and injuries. We’ve been here before a few times. Hopefully it won’t be that long, but I imagine it’ll be something on the list of questions prepared for Arsene Wenger ahead of this weekend’s game against Stoke. That and questions about not making any transfers, which will, of course, ignore the fact that when Welbeck does eventually return he will be Like A New Signing.
*weeps gently*
Anyway, not much we can do about it other than keep fingers crossed Roy Hodgson’s info is duff (which I doubt), or that Welbeck can recover more quickly. While there’s rightly been criticism of our injury record in the past, things have been improving. Not simply that we have fewer players in the Intensive Care & Euthanasia Ward, but that when they do pick up knocks they’ve been returning more quickly than normal.
It’s impossible, unless you’re injecting androids with super-strength serums, to avoid injury altogether. There are always going to be problems throughout the season. Most players play with aches and pains and niggles, so managing them is part of the job too. The recent improvement has been put down to the work going on behind the scenes, the Shadification of our fitness set-up playing a major part – or so we’d like to think.
This summer the club have recruited new physios, a number of strength and conditioning coaches (a couple of them Irish who have been working with GAA players), and there appears to be a much more modern approach to that side of the game. However, 6 months is a pretty short sample size and it’s hard to make any definitive judgements as to what’s better and what’s not.
It feels like it’s improved, but it’ll be interesting to look at where we are in a year and perhaps compare data regarding the amount of injuries and games missed from the previous years. I know there are people out there who are excellent with that kind of thing, who can plot things on charts and what have you, but that’s really not my area of expertise. So maybe a little project for someone, if it’s not being done already. And if it is I’d be very interested to see what it looks like now, and at the end of this season.
Right, not a lot else going on this morning, but fear not for James and I will be here later to record for you an Arsecast Extra. As always, if you have questions or topics for discussion, you can send them to @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter using the hashtag #arsecastextra.
We also accept questions sent via by Letters in a Bottle, cast into the sea until one day they eventually wash up on shore for us to read out on the podcast. Like this one, from 1987:
A question that has plagued us all, Graham.
Podcast available before lunch, until then.
