Saliba out for minimum of two weeks (if he’s not back for Man City that’s us losing that game)
Will Arteta find an alternative and stop playing Partey at right back or will we continue to haemorrhage points
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Saliba out for minimum of two weeks (if he’s not back for Man City that’s us losing that game)
Will Arteta find an alternative and stop playing Partey at right back or will we continue to haemorrhage points
Been thinking about this theory that our players are being pushed too hard in training. I honestly think that this is an over simplification. It stretches credibility that with all the data/player assessment that informs training regimes the manager is deliberately pushing our players deep into their red zones. Also, we know that some of our key injuries have been principally caused by in game incidents, and others (eg Ben White) long standing issues. I'm not saying that there is NO causal link between general player fatigue and such incidents, but there is no definitive evidence that sheer bad luck, as opposed to over training is not at play here.
What we can say is that particularly in our forward line our squad has not allowed rotation - and this is a probably factor. But the sheer amount of games in the football schedule are also at play here (looking at you international fixtures and the expanded CL) - as are scheduling quirks that, for example, saw us play Manure rather than a minnow in the 4th round of the FA Cup. Few clubs have the resources to cope adequately with this. Our bad luck was for our relatively fortunate injury season in 2023/4 to come at a time where Citeh were unstoppable. This season its the likes of Liverpool and Forest that the injury gods are smiling on.
I can't remember worse (key) injury luck in any season since I started supporting Arsenal. Am I wrong?
I suppose the way I look at it is this, I reject the absolutism that it’s either all bad luck or all on the manager. But I think squad mismanagement has to be looked at as a factor. Saying they are being beasted in training I accept is probably an oversimplification, but to suggest players who are carrying long term niggles and knocks are still being used despite the fact that it’s plain to see that they don’t look fit at the start of games let alone the end…I don’t think is controversial. Saka being injured is our chickens coming home to roost, he’s been overplayed for years now and whilst the injury to his hamstring could be a freak event, it’s also quite possibly the end result of tired limbs.
You will have people bemoan players for being fatigued and go on about the days where players could play 50-60 games a season no problem, before joining up with the national team. This simply does not account for how physically demanding the game is now in terms of athleticism. Sports science can only go so far and players like Ronaldo going on until they are 40 still seem like freaks of nature.
Arteta has shown low trust in players so even when there have been options for rotation in the creative and attacking areas he has been loath to take them
I think it's crazy we haven't recalled Vieira and Marquinhos
I'd take Vieira over Sterling any day of the week and both of them would simply add extra numbers to take some of the weight off the rest of the squad and repreesnt something to try towards the end of a game
Yeah - it's the decisions to offload Vieira; Nketiah; ESR and even Nelson that in hindsight look like gambles. Problem is that I don't think any of these are exactly ripping it up elsewhere, and in our current predicament any warm body seems attractive.
I don't disagree - and I do think that Saka in particular has been overplayed, but to put the opposing argument, Odegard's injury appears more to have been a freak challenge while playing for Norway, and his 2/3 month absence should have meant that he at least was fresh now, and Saka did seem to be one of those freaks who could play game after game without his levels dropping - something that was presumably shown on his data. Havertz also seems to be one of those injury resistant players - much like Xhaka was...
ESR scored at the weekend but tbh if, in normal circumstances, Arteta wasn't going to give those guys game time it's best they go, even if we think they should get game time
I'm just saying that with bodies so thin on the ground we should have at least recalled Vieira - maybe Arteta is trying to force the club's hand to buy by keeping the squad even thinner than we need to
When they asked Rice about his corner taking after the Spurs game, if he practised them in training his response was surprising:
He literally said something along the lines of "well no, we travel around quite a bit so we don't have that much time to practice, I just know where to put it and it comes down to muscle memory"
So is he suggesting they don't train very often or they only train on certain aspects?
I read that Tommy's return has been put back until mid February. Why the fuck don't we just buy him out and get rid. He is a Oriental Jack Wheelchair! Ben White's return has also been extended.