Official Injury Thread 2013/14: Page 69 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Official Injury Thread 2013/14

speedy

And compair him to Rodwell or Evans. There always picking up injuries to. Some players are horribly injury prone.

Rex

Gibbs has played in 39 games this season. Not too bad for a player who never plays...

kamikaze

i'm sorry, i don't buy the smaller squad explanation. it may be true that we have the smallest squad in the top 4 (though that's debatable - i think our squad depth has been at least the equal of united's the entire time), but that doesn't change the fact that it's irrational to get our first team players hurt if we know better. it's in our interest to make sure that they play as many games as possible, and that means resting them when the stats say they need to rest.

keeping in mind that we have consistently been at or near the top of games missed due to muscle injuries over the last 9 yrs, it means that there are 2 explanations: either (i) our physios are incompetent and can't actually tell when a player is in the "red zone" and susceptible to injury, or (ii) when a player is in the red zone, wenger is so stupid that he'll risk losing a player for 1-2 months instead of resting him for 1 game.

i don't find specific examples like aguero particularly interesting. anything can happen in small sample sizes. but when you see our injury record over the last 9 yrs compared to the rest of the league, it's clear that we are doing something wrong. it may be hard to believe for some, given our vast financial resources, but the numbers don't lie, and 9 yrs is a big sample size.

i think it's almost certain that our physios are shit compared to our rivals.

Rex

The plague of the muscle injuries is mostly on Wenger I reckon. There is too much data to find it believable that he is not aware of players being dangerously close to break down.

Squad size is perhaps not the right word, but more down to the quality of the squad players. Wenger is clearly reluctant to use them, unless forced to, and he is poor at rotating. There was a long period where he refused to give Vermaelen game time and just went with Kos and Mertesacker for instance. The muscle injury to Kos could have been avoided IMO, and it is a small miracle that Mertesacker has avoided injury with all the minutes he has played. Same thing with Gibbs really. Long period where he refused to rest him a game here and there. Instead he opted to just use Monreal as a late sub ahead of Gibbs. Even though we have plenty of competent midfielders, he refused to give Ramsey a rest too. Sagna is just a freak of nature, but he is doing the same thing to him.

goon

Every team does that though. City have one of the most in depth squads around and they play the likes of Yaya, Kompany, Aguero and Fernandinho without fail. Chelsea do it with Hazard, United with Rooney, RvP etc.

Like I said last time, there's too much at stake and every single game is a potential slip up. Resting a player in one game won't make a big difference either, you'd have to rest and rotate them fairly regularly to have a meaningful impact.

Rex

Of course it matters if a player can be completely rested, or be a sub and come in for the last 30, in the midweek game when we play every 3 days. It is a massive difference.

goon

It might make a difference in the short term, but the following weekned he's involved in 90 hard mins again and he's back in the red zone or whatever you want to call it. Then what? Rest him again in mid week?

When you're playing 2 games a week for 2 or 3 months as you say, then being rested for 60 mins somewhere in between will make next to no difference in the long run.

Rex

You are wrong there.

DiabyKungFu

For all the talk of the personnel changes we need to make in the summer, this is really the story of the season.

Interesting to note that the with/without splits of Ramsey and Ozil are (predictably) the most dramatic and (surprising even to #teamozil and downright offensive to the sensibilities of the Ozil hate brigade) practically identical. I was also pretty shocked by the goals conceded with Theo but then I remembered that a) one of the few games that Theo played this year was at the Etihad where he was one of the few players not responsible for the defensive meltdown as I recall and b) early in the season before Theo got hurt for the first time, we went through a period where we were legitimately unlucky defensively; our opponents would habitually score on their only chance of the game. Both of these things would affect Theo's numbers and I don't think the blame for either could be significantly apportioned to Theo.

Rex

I think it is so obvious how dependent we are on Walcott, and I don't like it. Without him, Giroud struggles to score consistently and the defenses we come across are a lot more successful in defending the area between the back 4 and midfield. Perhaps the purchase of a striker who is more versatile in the way he scores will remedy that somewhat, but I still think we will struggle with vertical movement to some degree. In my mind a direct player who operates from the flank is the second most important signing we have to make this summer.

Ramsey and Özil had a nice little partnership going. In most matches those two passing to each other was one of our most common passing combinations. I have no real data, and can't be arsed looking for it, but my memory tells me that Özil hitting a bad patch coincided with Ramsey not playing.

ludovicvanzis

From the stats KungFu posted we're dependent on Ozil more than anyone else. Look at the goals per game with and without him.

Which is exactly the impression i got too.

Klaus

That's the impression I've gotten too this season. Lad runs our whole game in that last third. It became even more obvious when he started missing matches and the whole team went off the boil.

Klaus

That chart also says something about Wilshere's contribution to our football this season. I feel that people tend to marginalise him for whatever reason.

dreamlord

Why is our goals conceded without Ozil in the side 1.46 versus 1.05 with him? Obviously he didn't directly help our defense, but I can't believe our back 5 played that bad when he wasn't there. Something to do with the fixtures that Ozil missed?

lorddulaarsenal

He helps us retain the ball

goon

Better attack makes defending easier.

dreamlord

Hm I think with Ozil its us doing the countering. Without him we go back to our usual 8 men in the opposition half tippy tappy, and concede on the counter.

Ricky1985

I think Ozil's powerful and clever running into the channels and in the pockets of space in behind makes teams think twice about squeezing us quite so much.

Irishgunner

Such a shame we never really got a chance to see Ozil and Theo link up properly 🙁

Burnwinter

Don't forget the stats are a bit skewed by all the overlaps in those absences—eg Ramsey and Walcott have been absent the entire time Özil has been absent with this recent injury.

We've been running a skeleton crew for every match he's been out.

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