Hello, we’re in the midweek doldrums a little bit. There’s no action until Saturday, of course, which is probably good, all things considered. We’re still waiting on definitive information about Alexis Sanchez, Santi Cazorla and Laurent Koscielny, but from yesterday the latest news to emerge is that the Spanish international has suffered ‘ligament damage’ to his left knee.
I’ve watched the incident in which he got injured again, and each time I try and convince myself that it’s the impact that hurts him. Clearly there’s a coming together between his knee and the shin of the Norwich player. But if the scans show ligament damage it’s probably because his leg was jarred backwards rather rapidly, a bit like the Coquelin challenge that put him out for three months.
The questions now, of course, are: Which ligament, and how badly is it damaged? Obviously the word we don’t want to start cropping up is cruciate, because that’s a season-ender if he’s done enough damage to it. Is it a sprain or a tear? If it’s the latter, whether that’s cruciate or collateral ligament, we’re talking periods of months (Coquelin’s injury was to his medial collateral ligament), and as far as I’m aware the only solution to a torn cruciate is reconstructive surgery (although there are varying techniques).
Even if it’s only a sprain, it could take weeks or months depending on the severity, so I think we might as well prepare ourselves for some bad news regarding Santi, and if it turns out better than we fear then it’ll feel like a little bonus.
Since the latest trio of problems, there have been all kinds of pieces about our injuries and the frequency at which they occur. Naturally we think we’re the team most affected, but a piece on ESPN suggests otherwise:
Injuries during the 2015-16 season in the Premier League show Arsenal to be seventh in the division with 24, which is only slightly above the league average (20.5), while their total is well behind the likes of Man City (35), Man United (31) and even Liverpool (25) who are also in the race for the top spot.
Is there any comfort to be taken from that? Absolutely not. Obviously I speak only for myself, but I genuinely don’t care about how many injuries other teams have. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, because I have no vested interest in that team. While you can always look at the opposition and hope a key player or two is missing, it’s a fleeting issue really.
I don’t care where we are in the injury league table. I don’t care if Man City or Man United or Piddlesworth Rovers have more injuries than we do. I care that we have a chronic issue with too many of our players missing too many games, and that the knock-on effects of that will see more players either pick up injury, at worst; or see their performance level suffer because they’re knackered like an old horse that’s been asked to pull a cart full of anvils up a massive great hill.
Now, I get that some of the data is representative of modern football. It’s genuinely impossible to keep everyone fit, injuries are part and parcel of football and the days of getting through a season with 16 man squad are long gone in a horse-drawn carriage stacked full of empty cortisone syringes. The increased speed of the game, the finely-tuned nature of the footballers, and the demands placed on them mean that you are going to get players who spend time on the sidelines. I don’t think anybody is arguing against that in any way.
There are also injuries about which you can do nothing at all. All the sports science, strength and conditioning, physios, doctors or anything else can prevent certain types of problem. If an opposition players goes studs up into somebody’s knee, ankle or shin and causes damage, that’s something unfortunate but you can’t really prevent it or legislate for it. Cazorla’s and Coquelin’s fall into that category really, as do Jack Wilshere’s last couple (even if you might worry about his ability to cope with impacts to previously damaged ankles).
The issue for me is whether or not Arsenal can maintain the squad depth required to challenge for a title we have so many players prone to consistent, regular injury. Right now, you’d look at Aaron Ramsey (maybe the least), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky, Mikel Arteta, Jack Wilshere, and Kieran Gibbs as the guys who consistently, and I mean season after season, suffer injuries which range from short-term disruptors (meaning they find it hard to achieve their best form), to ones which require months and months on the sidelines.
I like all those players (to varying degrees), and while they put a burden on the squad that’s fairly obvious, the solution isn’t so clear cut. If you say enough is enough, you’re talking about massive investment to replace the quality of some of them, and you run the risk of them finding fitness at a new club and that would be intensely frustrating. Maybe the answer is to replace some of them so the absences of the others aren’t so keenly felt.
There doesn’t appear to be switch we can push to solve this problem. It’s multi-faceted and complicated. If mouthy Dutch ‘experts’ were so brilliant, wouldn’t they be working at a top-flight club like Arsenal or City or United or Real Madrid (lots of muscle injuries there), instead of sniping from their Egg Avatar Twitter account?
None of which though lessens the frustrations we feel as fans, because we can see how big an impact having those players in our squad would have right now. If, in our last couple of Premier League games, we had been able to call on the pace and power of Danny Welbeck; the craft of Jack Wilshere; the dynamic Tomas Rosicky; and the speed and attacking threat of Theo Walcott, I suspect we might have come away with more than 1 point from those fixtures.
Those players are the difference between being 2 points off the top, and maybe 3 points clear. In a Premier League season where small margins will ultimately prove the difference, it could be the difference between a first title since 2004 and another campaign where we fall short.
Forget the fact there are 6 teams worse than us when it comes to injuries, the only table that counts is the one in which we’re currently 4th.
Till tomorrow.
