IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN... ARSENAL’S INJURY WOES DISSECTED
After 15 games of the Premier League season, it currently feels like only two things can prevent Arsenal from winning their first title in more than two decades. Their first problem is the Manchester City attack, led by goal-monster Erling Haaland. The second is far closer to home: Arsenal’s seemingly endless list of injuries to senior players.
Arsenal have assembled one of the deepest and most expensive squads on the planet but, despite all of that careful planning and investment, their injury issues have caused relentless headaches for Mikel Arteta. The Arsenal manager is currently spending much of his time seeking uncomfortable and unorthodox solutions to his team’s fitness problems.
In recent weeks, for example, he was compelled to deploy Mikel Merino, a midfielder by trade, as an emergency striker. Against Club Brugge in the Champions League on Wednesday, Arteta then had to use Christian Norgaard, another midfielder, as an emergency centre-back. It must feel like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole: whenever one player returns, it seems another then gets injured.
Of the 25 players in Arsenal’s first-team squad, 17 have missed at least one match this season with injury or illness. In the Premier League, only Leeds United have suffered more injuries this season. These numbers illustrate the problem but they do not tell even half the story for Arsenal, because the more significant issue is that they keep losing players in positional clusters.
Arsenal’s squad is so strong that they could comfortably handle the loss of one striker, one midfielder and one defender at the same time. Such a scenario would not give Arteta any sleepless nights. To lose three strikers at once, though, or four centre-backs at once (as is the current situation) is a far bigger challenge.
Why is this happening, and what can Arsenal do about it?
On the wider issue of muscular injuries, there is no easy answer, beyond a reduction in the amount of matches they are asked to play, which will not be happening any time soon. If there was a simple solution within Arsenal’s control, their medical team – led by the experienced Dr Zaf Iqbal, formerly of Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur – would have fixed the problem long before it derailed their campaign last year.
On the issue of the injuries to players in the same position, however, there is an obvious cause: when one player goes down, the physical burden on his replacement goes up. An example is Viktor Gyokeres, who started 13 of Arsenal’s first 15 matches of the season because he was the only fit centre-forward while Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz were injured. It was surely no huge surprise, then, when Gyokeres suffered a muscular problem in November.
Similarly, it cannot be coincidence that William Saliba, Cristhian Mosquera and Jurrien Timber have picked up knocks of varying severity following the injury on international duty of centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes.
“The fact you are missing players, you are loading other players more,” Arteta said this week. “As a consequence of that, it’s a really dangerous circle.”
Disgruntled supporters have questioned whether Arteta’s notoriously intense and demanding training sessions are to blame. The Arsenal manager dismissed that idea with some contempt, saying earlier this week that the fixture schedule means there is no time for his team to train properly.
Indeed, the feeling within the coaching staff is not that Arsenal train too hard or too often, but that they cannot train enough. Tendons need 72 hours to recover from competitive matches, and Arsenal play matches in most midweeks. Over the course of the campaign, there are therefore very few opportunities for Arsenal’s players to actually strengthen their muscles and tendons through training. They play, they recover for a few days, and then they play again.
Arsenal have looked deeply into the issue of muscular injuries, as their supporters would expect. One finding is that the danger often comes when a player is trying to accelerate to their fastest speeds. Because of the crammed schedule, clubs in European competition simply cannot consistently expose their players to those biomechanical forces in training when they are still recovering from the previous game. In other words, matches demand a level of physical exertion that cannot be replicated in recovery sessions at the training ground.
There is also an element of luck to all of this. Many of Arsenal’s injuries this season have been a consequence of unpredictable in-game events. Martin Odegaard alone has suffered three contact injuries this season, while Kai Havertz and Max Dowman have both been hurt by opposition players in tackles. Mosquera’s problem came from him landing awkwardly, while Timber missed the Club Brugge game because of a kick he took against Aston Villa. Clearly, these are not problems of methodology.
Could Arteta’s tactical approach be playing a part? In his system, the defenders are asked to play with a high line and therefore cover large spaces. The wingers are told to make high-speed runs at opposition full-backs, while the strikers lead the team’s press by aggressively closing down their opponents. This season, it is the centre-backs and forwards who have suffered the most injuries. The central midfielders, who play less explosively, have been safer.
Another curious factor is that Arsenal have deliberately recruited players with good availability during their careers. When they consider which signings to make, a player’s physical durability is an important factor. A potential flipside to this argument, though, is that such players can arrive at Arsenal with a lot of miles on their clocks. Is there a risk of cumulative fatigue, over the course of years, which increases the risk of injury? It must be possible.
All of these questions and theories underline the fundamental truth of the matter, which is that it is effectively impossible to accurately know how and when an injury will occur. For Arsenal, the hope is that the current “dangerous circle” will soon come to an end, which will allow Arteta to rotate his team, protect his players and fully utilise the extraordinary power of his squad.
Jesus thanks the Lord for his return
Gabriel Jesus believes his best is yet to come in an Arsenal shirt as he declared himself ready to help the club’s push for titles after an 11-month injury absence.
Jesus, who suffered a serious knee injury in January, made his return to first-team action with an impressive 30-minute cameo in Arsenal’s Champions League victory over Club Brugge on Wednesday night.
The Brazilian sparkled in the second half of the game, combining with the other attacking players and twice going close to scoring after replacing Viktor Gyokeres.
Asked if he can still become better than ever after a series of injury issues in recent years, the 28-year-old said: “One hundred per cent. For me, it doesn’t matter about the chances I had [against Club Brugge], I got in good positions, I could finish the actions and hit the target.
“To come back after 11 months and move the way I moved, I am so pleased. It was 11 months, 11 months of doubting yourself.
“Obviously now I am not a kid any more. I’m 28, it sounds young but Max [Dowman] is 15, Ethan [Nwaneri] is 18, Myles [Lewis-Skelly] is 19. I think I can bring some difference to the players we have.
“In my career I had amazing moments, and I have won amazing titles as well. I have been in amazing positions with my clubs before [Palmeiras and Manchester City] and even with Arsenal. Unfortunately we did not win anything yet, but just to come to Arsenal and then help, like everyone else, to make Arsenal fight for the titles again, this makes me feel happy.
“I’m a different guy when I have a smile on my face, I’m 100 per cent sure, and then obviously now I’m more experienced. Now I had 11 months of doubting, of stepping back and watching everything around me, that has helped me a lot.”
Jesus, a deeply religious man, said his faith was the key to his recovery from the knee injury, which came just as he was returning to top form after a difficult few months.
“My first thoughts [after the injury] were like, ‘Why?’ You always keep questioning why, the reason why. It wasn’t an easy season for me last season, and then at the moment I stepped in and started to play, started to score goals and play good, this happens [the knee injury].
“So the first question was: why? Every single day, the first two or three weeks, I asked why it happened to me now. And then after I could understand that I needed to be closer to Jesus, to God, to read the Bible.
“It helped me so much, you know, because it kept me believing that I’m a son of God, and then I could do everything if I felt God’s plans. Because of God I could stay 11 months, believing that I could come back good. To move the way I moved [against Club Brugge] showed to myself that God protects me all the time.
“If I didn’t hear the Bible every single day, I am 100 per cent sure I would not have believed I could come back stronger than ever. Now I believe even more, because I’m a son of God.”
Jesus is now pushing for a starting place in Mikel Arteta’s attack for Saturday’s home match against struggling Wolves.
Recommended
This should be Arsenal's time but there is a danger they want it too much
2025-12-12T08:05:36Z
