Do we get the most injuries? Untold Arsenal Injury Index, Gameweek 3 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does

Untold Injury Index – Gameweek 3

By Dale Higginbottom

This is the second instalment of the weekly look into the injury levels faced by the clubs in line for a title challenge. Arsenal’s problems with injuries over the past three seasons have been well documented in the media and have largely been blamed for the lack of trophies in recent years. Untold Arsenal have always been willing to look deeper and counter the (often wrong) beliefs that “Arsenal have too many injury prone players” or “Arsene signs crocs” and this series of articles will hopefully gather the raw data required to finally prove (or disprove) these beliefs. So, gameweek three went as follows:

Blackburn Vs Arsenal

Arsenal (5 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, defence – No injuries reported
• Midfield – Frimpong , Ramsey, Nasri
• Attack – Bendtner, RvP (started but injured during the game)

Point to note: Djourou and Denilsen appeared to have been declared fit but did not make the squad.

Tottenham Vs Wigan

Tottenham (9 injuries)

• Goalkeeper – Gomes
• Defence – Woodgate, Gallas
• Midfield – Bentley, Modric, O’Hara,
• Attack – Pavyluchenko (second half sub, returning from injury), dos Santos (second half sub, returning from injury), Keane (unused sub, returning from injury)

Chelsea Vs Stoke City

Chelsea (4 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported
• Defence – Ivanovic, Bosingwa, Bruma
• Midfield – Kakuta

Man Utd Vs West Ham

Man Utd (3 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported
• Defence – Ferdinand
• Midfield – Hargreaves, Anderson

Point to note: Carrick has been on the bench for a while returning from injury. He only appeared as a second-half sub but was not reported as injured.

Sunderland Vs Man City

Man City (4 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, midfield – No injuries reported
• Defence – Boateng, Bridge, Kolarov
• Attack – Balotelli

Liverpool Vs West Brom

Liverpool (1 injury)

• Goalkeeper, defence,  attack- No injuries reported
• Midfield – Rodriguez (second half sub, recovering from virus)

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The past two weeks have put Arsenal up near the top of the injury list with our long-term absentees either still out for a while or on the verge of a return. This week has seen things pick up for Arsenal on the injury front and going into the Blackburn game with four injuries is a big plus point so far. The injury to van Persie is obviously a blow but at least he can’t get even more injured whilst away with Holland.

The absence of early Champions League qualifiers for the first time in a while has probably helped somewhat and the fact that new signings have not needed to settle in has meant that less pressure is on injured/unfit players to make a quick return.

On the other side of that point is Tottenham. They seem to have been the worst hit overall so far in terms of injury quantities and on injuries in key areas to key players. Those early Champions League qualifiers can be really competitive with so much at stake and with players only just returning to match fitness after the summer the extra strain of two games per week can often be injury-inducing.

The remaining teams have all had similar levels of injury concerns so at the moment there are not a lot of major issues to report. This is likely to change over the season as more teams play midweek games and fatigue kicks in.

There will not be an injury round up next week as we have Arsenal fans’ favourite point of the season, the international break. Expect the numbers to change for the worse this time in a fortnight.

Untold Arsenal, not exactly the place for facts, but still, you can’t have it all.

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