Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

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Untold Injury Index – Gameweek 22

By Dale Higginbottom

We return to the scene of the accident with the return game against United. We all know what happened in August so I won’t dwell on that, what I will say is that the situation with injuries was not all too dissimilar to the one we currently face. The full-back issue has not eased up just yet but the return of Vermaelen and the emergence of Yennaris certainly have helped a little. Anyway, let’s get into the figures this week.

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

Arsenal Vs Man Utd (1-2)

Injuries	Arsenal (9 + 0S)	Man Utd (7 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	Sagna (A,16), Gibbs (M,16), Jenkinson (B,12), Santos (A,8)	Vidic (K,15), Ferdinand (B,5)
Midfield	Wilshere (A,22), Coquelin (E.2), Diaby (M,20), Arteta (C,2)	Cleverley (A,16), Fletcher (I,10), Young (A,7), Anderson (U,10)
Attack	Henry (C,1)	Owen (T,16)
Additional issues	Vermaelen returned to the squad and played the whole game. Fabianski was fit to play but was not in the squad.	Smalling and Jones both returned to the squad and both started. Smalling played the whole game but Jones had to be replaced after 17 minutes. Nani also had to be replaced, after 75 minutes.
Suspended	N/A	N/A

Norwich Vs Chelsea (0-0)

Injuries	Norwich (4 + 0S)	Chelsea (1 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	Rudd (A)	N/A
Defence	Tierney (G), Ward (K)	N/A
Midfield	N/A	Mikel (E,5)
Attack	Vaughan (K)	N/A
Additional issues	N/A	Ivanovic was back in the squad after a spell on the sidelines but did not feature. Lampard had to be replaced in the first half after picking up a calf injury.
Suspended	N/A	N/A

Bolton Vs Liverpool (3-1)

Injuries	Bolton (7 + 0S)	Liverpool (3 + 1S)
Goalkeeper	Jääskeläinen (T)	N/A
Defence	Alonso (F), Mears (Z)	Robinson (A,14)
Midfield	Davis (K), Gardner (K), Holden (K), Lee (Z)	Lucas (K,9), Spearing (E,2)
Attack	N/A	N/A
Additional issues	N/A	Agger returned to the squad and played the whole game.
Suspended	N/A	Suarez

Man City Vs Tottenham (3-2)

Injuries	Man City (0 + 1S)	Tottenham (3 + 0S)
Goalkeeper	N/A	N/A
Defence	N/A	Gallas (C,11)
Midfield	N/A	Huddlestone (A,19), Sandro (C,8)
Attack	N/A	N/A
Additional issues	Richards and Balotelli were both back in the squad. The former started and played the whole game, the latter came on after 65 minutes.	King returned to the squad and played the whole game.
Suspended	Kompany	N/A

So, the two at the top of the injury league table face each other and the game really could’ve gone either way. Arsenal had two more injuries to contend with, but didn’t suffer an injury during the game (thankfully). It’s pretty much no change in four other teams, all recording three injuries or fewer, hardly crisis levels.

Last year we won this fixture with a great performance and single goal by Ramsey however. last year we were in a much better injury position than we were on Sunday. Nine injuries for Sunday’s game Vs four last season. United by comparison, had slightly fewer injuries with seven players out (three last season).

Thankfully, around the grounds the results went our way so let’s have a look what happened.

The other big game of the week saw Manchester also with the upper-hand, with City winning with a late goal over Spurs. City again failed to even get on the scale, recording no injuries for their game but this was fairly evenly matched by Spurs who only recorded three injuries. The game went in the way of the league leaders and all but ended the Totts title hopes. Maybe this is the start of the decline which will include a thrashing on 26 February, they don’t have the easiest run of games coming up.

At Bolton, Liverpool had a very embarrassing defeat. For a team that was looking to challenge for a top-four place, yes they are holding on, this was a day to forget. Against a Bolton team that has been pretty badly hit by injuries all season, and considering Liverpool’s current lack of worries in that area, you wouldn’t expect a scoreline like that. I guess that’s what happens when you rely too heavily on one or two big-name signings.

Almost equally bad was Chelsea’s draw at Norwich. They had most of the possession and chances but, like a lot of games this season, they couldn’t find that winning performance. Chelsea are currently the team to watch for us and it could come down to one big day at the Ems in April.

After a difficult couple of weeks things could quite easily get back on track and very quickly. Firstly, the cup game against Villa will be a welcome respite from recent league results and for that we’re expecting Arteta and Henry to be available. Secondly the next run of league games are all more than winnable before we get into the big games against Milan, the Totts and Liverpool. Finally, in the next two to three weeks we’ll also be expecting the return of Gervinho, Chamakh, Sagna, Gibbs, Coquelin and Wilshere can’t be that far away either.

This season to me has a strong feeling of 2005/2006 season. We struggled in the league then and the Totts were ahead of us for parts of the season. In that season we pulled it out of the bag in the final games and finished in the top-four, just. We also, had an issue at full-back (the year of seven left-backs) but in that season we did also reach the Champiosn League Final. With big players on their way back to fitness and the squad getting back to being more balanced, why not do all that again eh?