Untold Injury Index – Gameweek 14 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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Untold Injury Index – Gameweek 14

By Dale Higginbottom

After a couple of off-days last week it was always important to get back on track in the league with a victory. The away form this season has been patchy to say the least so to play the league’s current worst team was always going to be welcomed. It was a comfortable victory, a great team performance with goals coming from all over the team and that was a lovely change.

Onto injuries for the Wigan game and the main addition was again, Abou Diaby as it appears that he’s got a muscle injury. This is quite common after a long spell on the sidelines, that players pick up niggles on their way back to fitness. He shouldn’t be out for too long but he really needs a break (not in that way) and a chance to get some game time.

A = Ankle	K = Knee
B = Back	L = Achilles
C = Calf	M = Muscle
D = Dead Leg	N = Hip
E = Hamstring	R = Rib
F = Fatigue/Lack of Fitness	S = Shoulder
G = Groin	T = Thigh
H = Head Injury/Concussion	U = Unknown
I = Illness	Y = Hand
J = Foot	Z = Broken Leg

Wigan Vs Arsenal (0-4)

Injuries	Wigan (2 + 1S)	Arsenal (7 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	Kirkland (B)	N/A
Defence	Boyce (E)	Sagna (A,8), Gibbs (M,8), Jenkinson (B,4)
Midfield	N/A	Wilshere (A,14), Miyaichi (A.5), Diaby (M,12), Rosicky (T,4)
Attack	N/A	N/A
Additional issues	N/A	N/A
Suspended	Alcaraz	N/A

Newcastle Vs Chelsea (0-3)

Injuries	Newcastle (4 + 1S)	Chelsea (2 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Williamson (A)	N/A
Midfield	Marveaux (G), Tiote (K)	Essien (K,14), McEachran (A,1)
Attack	N/A	N/A
Additional issues	Best returned to the squad but was an unused sub. Coloccini was forced off with an injury after 27 minutes and S. Taylor picked up an injury	N/A
Suspended	Gutierrez	N/A

Tottenham Vs Bolton (3-0)

Injuries	Tottenham (5 + 0S)	Bolton (9 + 1S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Dawson (L,10)	Ricketts (L), Mears (Z), Alonso (J), Boyata (A), Riley (E)
Midfield	Huddlestone (A,10), Kranjcar (A,9)	Davis (K), Lee (Z), Holden (K), Gardner (K)
Attack	Pavlyuchenko (K,2), Dos Santos (G,1)	N/A
Additional issues	Van der Vaart was a doubt but started on the bench, coming on after 73 mins. Corluka also returned to the squad and was an unused sub.	N’Gog and Reo-Coker were both doubts but both were included in the squad and both played a part in the game.
Suspended	N/A	Wheater

Fulham Vs Liverpool (1-0)

Injuries	Fulham (5 + 0S)	Liverpool (3 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Grygera (K)	Robinson (A,6)
Midfield	Davies (K), Duff (C), Sidwell (M)	Gerrard (A,10), Lucas (K,1)
Attack	Sa (E)	N/A
Additional issues	Kelly, Dembele and Dempsey were doubts for the game but all three started and played 90 mins.	N/A
Suspended	N/A	N/A

Man City Vs Norwich (5-1)

Injuries	Man City (1 + 0S)	Norwich (4 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Kolarov (U,1)	Ayala (K), Ward (K), De Laet (B)
Midfield	N/A	N/A
Attack	N/A	Vaughan (K)
Additional issues	N/A	Whitbread returned from injury but was only an unused sub.
Suspended	N/A	N/A

Aston Villa Vs Man Utd (0-1)

Injuries	Aston Villa (1 + 0S)	Man Utd (6 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Lichaj (N)	Rafael (S,14), Fabio (E,1)
Midfield	N/A	Cleverley (A,8), Anderson (K,4)
Attack	N/A	Owen (T,8), Berbatov (A,1)
Additional issues	Given was forced off with an injury after 38 mins. Petrov was a doubt for the game but he started on the bench and came on after 59 mins. Jenas was also replaced after 63 mins after suffering an achilles  problem.	Hernandez went off with an injury after just 12 minutes. Welbeck returned to the squad, he played the last 12 minutes.
Suspended	N/A	N/A

We’re back on top then, and I thought things were looking much better. Ah well, we managed pretty well with the injuries, albeit against a pretty poor Wigan team.  I think we’ve done quite well in defence in recent weeks, given our injuries there and it now feels like we have some good strength in depth in these positions.

Around the other grounds…

United follow us with the next highest injury list and they managed to scrape another 1-0 victory. They really should’ve bought more midfield players when it was clear that they had none. Yes, they did want to rely on Anderson, Carrick, Fletcher and Cleverley but is that really enough creative strength for a team challenging for the title? I think not. Rooney in midfield is just sterilising them a bit too much.

The Tiny Totts had a comfortable win at home against a struggling team, ravaged by injuries, who had a man sent off harshly, so well done them. Seriously though, the Totts have had their own injury concerns but the mid-week rest that most of their players generally get really helps their league freshness.

City are boring us all by making their scorelines so predictable, can’t they just struggle a bit more for once, maybe against us in just over a week? One thing about City though, they have actually recorded an injury (Hargreaves doesn’t really count). I wonder how long they can keep this injury luck going?

Chelsea picked up a nice win and helped us move up the table where as Liverpool helped us all the same but with a defeat. Liverpool, after great performances against City and Chelsea again showed their league form is very inconsistent by losing to Fulham. Great to see all that money they spent has gone to good use.

Writing this now, just after the Champions League defeat things are starting to possibly look quite bad. Yes, the defeat is annoying but not something that anyone will really dwell on, we had already finished top of our group and the team was always going to be a weakened one. We didn’t however expect it to be further weakened by two serious looking injuries. Fabianski and Santos were both stretchered off during the game and that was probably the worst part of that game.

The injuries leave us a little short in goal but with Szczesny on form it’s not a huge issue at present. The big worry however is full-back, where Santos’ injury leaves us without a recognised player for either the right or left side. I’d personally love to see Coquelin given a chance at right-back for the next few games but hopefully we’ll see Jenkinson or Sagna return pretty sharpish.

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