Claudius I think he needs to find ways to stop it happening. Obviously a lot of injuries are unavoidable but there is a big difference with players like Odegaard looking fresh. Its the same as the post-Dubai period. Freshness is huge for this team and the way Arteta wants to play. He's got to trust the likes of Nwaneri, Merino and Jorginho, maybe even Sterling to do more in the coming months.

      Qwiss

      I think it also helps mitigate injuries when they do happen too. If Saka gets injured it will be a disaster regardless. But there's also a difference between Sterling coming in having played 1 game vs Sterling coming in having played 6 and scored a couple.

          goon I'm hoping Sterling will do more second half of the season and Arteta has just been getting him up to speed. He definitely offers something going forward but I can see why Arteta doesn't trust the rest of his game.

              Qwiss

              I get what you're saying with this, but i never like loan signings that take half a season to get up to speed. Granted, we're only paying a fraction of his wages, but we're in December now and he's done just about nothing.

                6 days later

                When's our back up right back going to be fit again?

                  4 days later

                  JazzG what a show of shit. Our defenders have our highest share of the ball. Without our first choices, we are severely degraded.

                    If ever you needed proof that there is a higher power screwing with us, then having 7 injuries at the same time at full back (directly or indirectly) when all summer we talked about how Calafiori was a luxury signing, must be up there.

                      I fucking give up with this. This has to be a lost season. It was our biggest chance, and our squad (at even close to full strength) was set up to capitalize. But we have been nowhere near full strength pretty much all season.

                      yeah, time to fast-track MLS, don't really have much choice

                      Might be being naive but 7 players absent from training doesn't mean they're all out for tomorrow.

                      Don't get me wrong, it's far from ideal but doesn't have to mean crisis just yet (although indicators for the foreseeable aren't great).

                        Don Pacifico it is a crisis. Arteta has spoken about this in his post-game interviews, that it's impossible to prepare for games wen large parts of the squad are injured or constantly coming in and out of the squad. you end up being disjointed

                          Did we do a proper medical on Calafiori given the well known knee injury issues? I'm probably overly cynical but I was always a bit concerned about the process involved with him being from the same club as Tomiyasu.

                            invisibleman18 I don't think a medical is even necessary to know what a risk it is. We all knew he had a bum knee, and that kind of history can cause unpredictable issues under stress.