Injury Thread...It's Never Ending
jones wrote:Issue is not with the qualifying, it's with ruling that Africa with close to 60 countries has five qualifying spots.
The quality of the other 40 countries are really low though. Asia have many countries too but quality like Africa is concentrated at the top teams and only have 4.5 spots which still works fairly well generally due to the qualifying format. Group J and E is ridiculously weak in quality then you have South Africa, Ghana / Ivory Coast Cameroon grouped together 3 of the strongest teams in Africa. Not sure how their seeding panned out.
I think both South and North America have the best qualifying format.
Clrnc wrote:jones wrote:Issue is not with the qualifying, it's with ruling that Africa with close to 60 countries has five qualifying spots.
The quality of the other 40 countries are really low though. Asia have many countries too but quality like Africa is concentrated at the top teams and only have 4.5 spots which still works fairly well generally due to the qualifying format. Group J and E is ridiculously weak in quality then you have South Africa, Ghana / Ivory Coast Cameroon grouped together 3 of the strongest teams in Africa. Not sure how their seeding panned out.
I think both South and North America have the best qualifying format.
There will always be difficult groups or seeding issues, even in Europe you have shit teams like Wales or Fyrom still in the mix because they were drawn into poor groups while Norway with their best team in ages is out. With Africa the qualifying could be better but with just five spots there will 100% be decent teams missing out, even spreading the good teams out over all groups wouldn't change that plus it would just deprive others from the chance of playing in the WC which Congo and especially Mali definitely deserved after this qualification.
I take your point about the decent teams missing out jones, but that happens everywhere. But clrnc is right - the football quality on display in some of the African qualifiers is pukeworthy. Tried watching last week - couldn’t make it through the entire 90 minutes even when it was Nigeria playing against Cape Verde, and we are supposed to be one of the better squads.
Arteta confirms Tomiyasu is a doubt for Watford game on Sunday.
The guys is injured a lot, how many games is it already this season?
Looked into it, the season before this, he was out 3 times with 3 different injuries for 54 days(and of course he had a calf injury then as well)
The 2019/2020 season he missed 76 days with injury...
Didn't we rush him back for the Liverpool cup game? He looked all over the place in that game as well.
Yeah find it hard to blame him. He was still injured and played through injections for that game. No surprise he aggravated it badly after that.
HomeSteak wrote:Arteta confirms Tomiyasu is a doubt for Watford game on Sunday.
The guys is injured a lot, how many games is it already this season?
Looked into it, the season before this, he was out 3 times with 3 different injuries for 54 days(and of course he had a calf injury then as well)
The 2019/2020 season he missed 76 days with injury...
We need good rotation fullbacks on both sides if we are in the CL next season. Tomi and Tierney are 2 players you really don't want to be pushing too hard over a season.
If Tierney is out for the rest of the season and Partey for the rest of the month (both speculative timeframes from me) then more costly points will be dropped and the Champions League race will be a distant memory by the end of the season.
We all knew we had to keep our first choice 11 fit to stand a chance of Champions League qualification.
That's why the January window was madness.
we've been fortunate with injuries during this run. if partry is sidelined or impaired for the next month you might as well pack it in. the whole system falls apart without him
Quincy Abeyie wrote:That's why the January window was madness.
It really was. If Partey's out for longer than 1 or 2 games, we're fucked. And what are the odds Lacazette scores another goal this year? We need 2 midfielders and 2 strikers anyway, should have gotten one of each in the winter, didn't even have to be a longterm solution or the "right" player. Just someone to ensure we don't have to start all of Tavares, Lokonga, Cedric, Laca and Xhaka against the likes of ManUtd or Spurs. That's half our team against Brighton most likely and none of them is good enough.
To be honest lets not overreact. We did badly in Jan window but Palace was always a game most expected us to drop points.
I think its just that the nature of the performance is so bad we are all angry.
Tierney having surgery and out for the season. Once I realized this season that Tierney was playing a limited game, I wasn't going to put much credence in his performances this campaign. The only thing I expected of him was to put together a half-season of just being a fit, selectable and soaking majority of minutes on offer. That would have been worthwhile in itself but alas. Soares, Saka, Xhaka, Tavares need to step up. Club needs to look into Doig, Cucurella, other talents for depth.
Time to sell Tierney and buy a proper LB.
Can’t rely on a LB who misses the amount of games Tierney does.
Sicario wrote:Time to sell Tierney and buy a proper LB.
Can’t rely on a LB who misses the amount of games Tierney does.
Not a popular opinion but I agree. Sell Tavares this summer, buy a starting quality left back and then in 2023 sell Tierney.
Really frustrating news about Tierney. Will be terribly missed for the rest of the season. 
I really like him and I think he's a great player (imo gotten underrated by both Arsenal and football fans in general), however his injuries are starting to become a real worry.
Still, don't think a starting LB is a realistic signing for upcoming summer. We'll have much bigger worries probably. Give it a 20% chance of happening.
Also, the fact that Tierney is likely to be made captain next season suggests we're not going to replace him anytime soon.
Do we now have 3 players with ongoing injury issues = KT, Tomi and Partey?
Does this mean we need to consider replacements as yet or do we wait to complete the rest of the rebuild first?
For mind the team spine needs to be both fit for purpose and reliable in regards to being available for selection.
Mikel Arteta has revealed Arsenal are “not very optimistic” about the possibility of Thomas Partey playing again this season.
Partey, 28, has been assessed this week after the Ghana international sustained a thigh injury during Arsenal’s 3-0 loss at Crystal Palace on April 4.
The Athletic reported last week that Partey was expected to be out for the next few weeks with his thigh problem.
Arsenal have eight games to play in the Premier League with Arteta’s side battling it out for a top-four spot but it seems unlikely the Spaniard will be able to call on Partey's services.
Arteta, speaking ahead of Arsenal’s trip to Southampton on Saturday, said: “The news we got after having an assessment is not great.
“It’s not looking very positive for his availability this season, but we’ll have to wait and see. He’s trying to get back as quickly as possible but at the moment we are not very optimistic about it.
“The moment is not ideal. We knew towards the end of the season one of the key elements was going to be having the team available as much as possible. We have a few issues with him and (Takehiro) Tomiyasu, but we have to continue to compete.”
The Arsenal manager is hoping captain Alexandre Lacazette is available for selection despite there being doubts over his availability.
Arteta added: “Obviously, there are private reasons that I cannot comment on but I have no other team news to give apart from the guys that we have discussed.
“We will see if he’s available. There’s a good possibility that that's the case.”
Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney remain sidelined.