Firstly, apologies (not) for the parody of Mr Kenneth Williams. It will be interesting this summer to see if our various ins and outs involve the medical / conditioning team at all. Obviously they will be conducting medicals for ALL our incoming player at least, but what I mean is will any of those staff be moved out and new people brought in.
To be clear, I’m not pointing fingers at anyone – I couldn’t even name anyone on the team – and we all saw the reaction of Bukayo Saka when he scored on his return to the team. He was thrilled and immediately ran in gratitude to the physio who had guided him back to fitness. To be fair, he has played regularly since his return, if not yet up to his best level, has taken a bump here and there with no lasting effect, and everything is crossed that he doesn’t suffer a recurrence.
But our injury list has seen us make an unwelcome return to the top of the Infirmary League this season though, and it’s not unreasonable to think that a thorough review of training, conditioning and monitoring procedures will be taking place.
So just how bad was our injury situation ?
According to Premier Injuries, the football injury statistics resource founded by Ben Dinnery, Arsenal suffered 36 separate “time loss” injuries last season and lost 1,297 days to them – the fourth highest on the Premier League behind Ipswich, Tottenham and Brighton. Our relative success despite our injuries is a huge credit to Arteta and the coaching staff.
We have, as we all know only too well, suffered an uncanny number of long term and season ending injuries that required surgeries. The great majority of them have involved hamstrings and knees, closely linked of course, and unsurprisingly really for footballers. I can only think, off the top of my head, of Martin Ødegaard (ankle) and Mikel Merino (shoulder) who have suffered much else. Riccardo Calafiori has been plagued by calf strains, also closely linked to knees, and he arrived at the club having already suffered an extremely serious knee injury and reconstruction in Italy. Jurrien Timber had apparently only suffered to a minor extent this season, thankfully, but it now transpires that he too has had to succumb again to the surgeon’s – or robot’s** – knife, although this time requiring ankle surgery.
With so much stress being placed on anyone who has remained fit, there has maybe been a surprising absence of back and groin strains by comparison. White, Gabriel, Saka, Jesus, Havertz and Tomiyasu have all been on the operating table with knee and hamstring issues, while William Saliba came off at half time against Newcastle towards the end of the season with similar problems but thankfully did not require surgery. It is a worry, in the present context, that even Reiss Nelson suffered serious hamstring injuries in both legs which severely hampered his efforts to make an impact on loan at Fulham. It’s reasonable to ask whether his preparation at Arsenal could have made him more susceptible to those injuries.
**The improving success of surgery
It’s very early days yet but one possible cause for hope to come from our spate of surgeries is that the likelihood of recurrence seems to be reducing. Technology is making surgery more accurate which in turn is leading to less damage to both bone and soft tissue, reduced bleeding and infection risk and, therefore, quicker healing times. Many orthopaedic surgeries are now guided by robot, albeit with a consultant surgeon still in control! A CT scan (computerised tomography – like a 4D x-ray) is taken of the area to be operated on and aligned by laser with the patient on the operating table. The robot then guides cutting precisely according to the scan, thus improving the accuracy.
Methods of testing for potential fatigue and overuse injuries
We are all familiar with the “red zone” players are said to be in when they are running a high risk of overuse and fatigue injuries. To avoid such injuries at Premier League level clubs there are many and varied ways of regularly testing the condition of players.
Firstly, to start with the bleeding obvious, good old fashioned communication between player and coaches. The old adage that “players always want to play” is true enough but it is vital that they are honest about how they feel.
Players are now fitted with GPS tracking systems in all matches and training sessions to monitor the distances a player is running. They can also be used to assess when the number and speed of sprints and recovery runs begins to drop, which are also indicators of fatigue and the need for rest or substitution. That information is constantly relayed to coaches, so when you see Albert Stuivenberg and Mikel Arteta studying the iPads during a match, they are not always only fuming at the latest refereeing bungle.
Fatigue has become a major concern as players are asked to play more and more club and international matches. Far flung club tours are a requirement to raise revenue and international tournaments are invented to fill every possible space in the calendar – the latest of them as a means to boost the ego and bank accounts of some high ranking officials and to subvert the normal competitive process of winning the rights to host a World Cup.
Electronic Methods Of Testing.
Muscle fatigue can be tested electronically using various methods, including assessing force output of muscles; using electromyography (EMG) to measure electrical activity in muscles; analyzing blood samples for biomarkers of stress and fatigue; maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) tests; twitch force measurements in muscle fibres; and electrical stimulation of nerves or muscles.
Maximal Voluntary Contraction (MVC) tests: these tests assess the force or power a muscle can produce during a voluntary effort, which is a key indicator of fatigue.
Electromyography (EMG): this measures the electrical activity within muscles. Surface EMG (sEMG) is a non-invasive technique that can detect changes in muscle activity associated with fatigue.
Twitch Force Measurements: these involves measuring the force generated by a single twitch contraction of a muscle, often using electrical stimulation. Changes in twitch force can indicate fatigue.
Blood Analysis: blood tests can reveal levels of lactate – lactic acid – creatine kinase (CK) an enzyme produced by effort in the muscles, and other biomarkers that may indicate muscle fatigue or damage. The lactate stress test is a standard way of assessing the levels of lactic acid produced during a heavy workload.
Mechanomyography (MMG): this non-invasive technique measures muscle micro-oscillations that are related to force production.
Twitch Interpolation: this technique involves stimulating a muscle with a small twitch during a maximal voluntary contraction, again to assess the degree of fatigue.
Muscle Biopsy: in some cases, a muscle biopsy may be performed to examine the muscle tissue under a microscope, which can reveal signs of muscle damage or changes associated with fatigue.
Nerve Function Tests: these tests evaluate the electrical activity in nerves, which can be relevant in understanding muscle fatigue or weakness.
Manual Methods Of Testing
There are various manual methods of testing muscle strength and fitness, from Observational Tests, Repetitive Movement Tests and operator (eg physio) resistance to player (patient) effort. These are pretty obvious tests like observing players walking on heels or toes, rising from a chair, climbing stairs, and balance tests following long injuries to assess proprioception.
Medical Research Council (MRC) Scale – also known as the Oxford Scale: this is a standardised test using a scale from O to 5 to grade muscle strength against resistance. It measures range of movement, from very impaired to full, against degrees of resistance, again from nil to maximum, as applied by the operator (physio).
In terms of Premier League footballers, these manual tests and observations will really only apply to players returning from injury or surgery, otherwise all these levels of ability will be constantly mechanically recorded. There is though always the ultimate “eye test” of a returning player – how does he look in training – and the player’s hopefully honest assessment of how he feels.
So how can injury be prevented ?
The first thing I would do to help prevent knee injuries is impose a complete ban on the knee slide goal celebration. The most certain way of tearing or weakening an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is to force the head of the femur over the head of the tibia, that is, exactly the action of a knee slide. I accept that none of our current crop has been incurred in that way, but if I was an insurance company the knee slide would be top of my exclusions list.
Watching the videos online of Arsenal training sessions, I was surprised to see players going through their warm up jogs and lazily kicking a bent leg across the body. Of course an individual exercise needs context but I was absolutely left wondering what this is supposed to achieve, especially under the gaze of someone as intense as Mikel Arteta. Dynamic stretches of some sort, maybe? Sorry, but not at this level of engagement. It made me wonder what the quality of stretching really is at first team level. In particular, I wondered whether a great Arsene Wenger innovation is still used at the training ground – that of the Plastic Stretch.
When Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal the famous back four / five he inherited were all of an age where they would normally have been approaching the ends of their careers. I remember them being amazed at two hour sessions when they did nothing but stretching exercises. The result was that they played for probably an extra five years – and I don’t ever remember an injury crisis in Arsene’s time that came close to the one we have just experienced. (That is apart from when all the young players like Walcott, Wilshere, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jenkinson, were suffering recurrences of connective tissue problems associated with immature bodies.)
So, what is plastic stretching? There are three basic types of stretching:
1 – Ballistic stretching: This is the typical Sunday morning footballer’s 10-15 second bouncing stretch to touch toes. The bouncing, or ballistic stretch does not actually stretch at all, but causes muscles to contract. It’s the sort of thing you see sprinters or skiers doing in the start blocks to prepare muscles to fire into action when the start gun goes off.
2 – Viscous stretching: This is the 30-40 second stretch before an activity begins. It will generally last for the duration of the activity and then everything reverts to normal.
3 – Plastic stretching: This is a series of long, slowly progressing, passive stretches where the target muscle is not active during the stretch. Typically, it will involve gently stretching the muscle for around 3 minutes, carefully extending the stretch with breathing as it becomes possible. There will then be a 1 minute rest. The whole thing will be repeated 3 or 4 times before moving on to the next muscle group. So anywhere between 10-15 minutes to stretch a single muscle group. Nothing I have seen or read suggests that this kind of thing still happens. I would be pleased to be corrected if anyone knows better.
Another way of avoiding stress and fatigue injuries is obviously to rotate players more regularly in order to reduce the number of hours / minutes they are playing for. That, of course, requires a bigger squad of more even quality. Last season we incurred injuries at such a pace that there simply weren’t enough fit players left to choose from.
So Why Did So Many Injuries Occur ?
With so many ways of monitoring, testing and, therefore, avoiding injuries, the obvious question is how did we finish up with so many. We were very unlucky last season to be hit by a number of freak injuries. Knocks and impact injuries can reasonably be put down to bad luck and can happen at any time. Martin Ødegaard was unfortunate to pick up a serious ankle ligament injury caused by a tackle in an international match. Mikel Merino was landed on by Gabriel in his very first training session after his transfer from Real Sociedad, which resulted in a broken shoulder. Riccardo Calafiori was also unlucky to be hit by a low flying Frenchman in an international match, which resulted in a serious calf muscle tear.
But we suffered so many serious muscle and ligament tears and ruptures that pure bad luck does not seem a likely explanation for these. Again, I would be happy to be proved wrong if anyone in the know is reading, but it seems that either our preparation and conditioning was inadequate, warning signs were being ignored or a sufficient level of testing was not being carried out.
Due to our squad size and composition maybe we were ignoring warnings of necessity – there simply weren’t enough fit players to draft in, but the basic question remains – how did so many players become affected ?
If anyone has the answers ….. the Drinks beckon …..
I’ll read after physio but heh, timely title on the day Tomiyasu is released. Good luck to him.
Trev thank so much for a highly interesting and of course very authoritative piece (as one would expect given your profession and standing within it).
As if to put an exclamation mark to your writing, this morning brings the news that Tomi is on his way a year early. He was doomed to spend most of next season on the sidelines. I wish him well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cedgv61x9j9o
A very informative piece Trev. I wonder if anyone from the club will read it and comment.
Meanwhile, thanks for some great performances and good luck for the future, Super Tomiyasu.
Cheers, Dr Trev! Splendid and very interesting piece.
Are you one of the famous Knights who say ‘Knee’ ?
Fascinating read. Trev. Thank you.
Plastic stretching sounds a lot like yoga.
When did the knee slide goal celebration become a thing? It has always struck me as an idiotic thing for a player to do, especially on modern pitches. Perhaps they didn’t happen back in the day because you’d just get stuck in the mud if you tried one.
Good luck to Tomi, cruelly treated by injury. I hope he gets fully fit again and resumes a successful career.
Well, well.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/07/04/thomas-partey-arsenal-footballer-charged-with-rape/
Some wonderful depth there, Trev. Great work. While it’s unlikely that anyone from Arsenal will comment even if they read your piece, it would certainly be interesting to hear some opinions and thoughts from the medical team.
I have always thought that the knee slide is nutty.
C100 @ 7 – I find it deeply disturbing the club has not issued a statement.
ecg @9, what can they say? There’s now a criminal prosecution in progress. They would do well not to be accused of influencing it with any statement they make.
Trev
I can honestly say that this is the most comprehensible and interesting piece I have ever read on this subject . Frank Mclintock once told me that he asked Pat Rice if he could watch training at Colney after Wenger arrived . He watched the players going through an extended period of stretches and then suggested that this would help when they started proper training . Pat told him that this was all they did and Frank was amazed at the levels of fitness they reached given they did so little running . Thanks for a brilliant insight Trev.
ECG – not only do I reinforce what Bath says at 10 but Partey is no longer an Arsenal player. Any intervention would not be helpful or relevant . They will be quizzed over why they were preparing to offer him a new contract up until surface a few days ago
I find it deeply disturbing he is charged 4 days after his contract ends. No way can that be a coincidence.
Statement from Arsenal Supporters against sexual violence
Continues
I thank C100 for reproducing that statement which represents the views of many Arsenal fans who abhor sexual violence . I think it is a good for a group of Gooners to underline their total revulsion concerning sexual violence and its impact on the victims
I think Arsenal have got themselves in a pickle . They were by all accounts trying to negotiate a contract extension with Partey until a few days ago when he appeared to decide to move to Barca . We don’t know if the club got wind of the likely charges but there will be huge scrutiny of their position and the seeming willingness to resign Partey
But by the same token they can’t put out a club statement that might be deemed prejudicial to Partey’s case not least because it might be seized on by the defence who feel it would be difficult to hold a fair trial in these circumstances
Whatever it is a squalid business , the club’s image is likely to be damaged and it could even dissuade potential signings from wanting to join a club who are perceived to be laissez-faire on a matter of this importance
A very tricky situation awaits the club management
The club is between a rock and a hard place. The reputational damage will be down to how much it knew, when it knew it and what legal advice it took regarding its position. I will bow to m’learned friends in the bar, but would it not have been difficult/unlawful for the club to have suspended Partey, thus publicly naming him as the subject of a sexual violence case, before the prosecuting authorities indicted him? If nothing else, given the inevitable press attention suspension would have attracted, taking such a course of action might have jeopardised a fair trial in the event the investigation concluded that there was a case to answer. It could also have compromised the privacy of the complainants. UK law gives victims lifetime anonymity in such cases for a reason. A suspension would also have left the club in a difficult position if the investigation had concluded there was not a case to answer.
In its announcement today, the Crown Prosecution Service said:
We remind everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendant has the right to a fair trial. We know there will be significant public interest in this announcement, but it is absolutely vital that there is no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/london-north/news/authorises-charges-against-thomas-partey
I would like the club to issue a clear statement of why they took the course of action that they did in this case, and what advice/instruction they received from the police, the CPS or their lawyers about their responsibilities and conduct. I would also like that statement to cover the attempt to extend Partey’s contract, which is potentially a far more morally ambiguous action on the club’s part.
Ned
I’m very much with you that is a very fair summary and suggestion
If I can relate one incident . I have a friend who is a financial adviser to many elite sportsmen . One night he was asked to go to Newcastle to talk to three potential clients , all then current Newcastle first teamers . All would be known to you . They went for a drink in Bigg Market in a quiet bar . One of their number was very quiet and suspicious and over the evening they were approached by several very attractive and some not quite so attractive women . They rebuffed them all in a way which surprised my friend who is something of a playboy himself . When he enquired all three of them admitted that they had dated local girls who had tried to allege that they had assaulted them ( a couple were married and the motive was blackmail ) ‘ Our motto is ‘ don’t touch these women ( not the word they used) with a f…..g barge pole . They are jailbait .’
That’s not a nice story and it shook my friend but he came away realising how vulnerable these lads could be . Undoubtedly some rich young footballers do wildly overstep the mark but they are easily set up and clubs field a lot of complaints which they have to filter
That’s not any sort of excuse for sexually predatory behaviour but it does show there are two sides to a story and it might explain Arsenal’s reticence to confront this issue .
Personally I think they should have suspended him but made it clear this was because it was club policy and in no way implied guilt on his part . And no way should they have considered giving him a contract extension given that these charges were clearly still floating around
TTG@17: It is a difficult call, but on balance, I am not with you on your penultimate sentence. One reason is that it risks encouraging the predatory behaviour you allude to in your anecdote, which sounded highly credible. I also don’t think. as a practical matter, there could be a policy of suspension on investigation in a high-profile business like football without an implication of guilt, at least in the court of public opinion. Certainly, trust between employee and employer would be shot to pieces in such circumstances. I do, however, very much agree with your final sentence. One could argue that that implies a double standard — there is surely moral equivalence in letting someone who maintains his innocence play while under investigation and giving him a new contract to keep playing while still under investigation. However, I would have thought that the jeopardy of charges being pressed, at which point a suspension would be justified, in my book, was great enough for the club to have cut its ties at the end of the contract. Perhaps, the club believed that the investigation would end without charges, I have no idea. Certainly, there is little to be gleaned from its terse statement that this is an ongoing legal matter, so no further comment.
I have no legal knowledge nor experience of such cases like TTG but the thoughts of legal friends and a very good twitter summary by MagicHat suggest that the club had no legal option but to continue to play Partey on the basis of accusations until such time that he was charged. Any suspension or change in playing time would have breached his right to anonymity and their duty as his employer. Nor would the police or CPS have shared the evidence with the club or its lawyers – their knowledge of the case would be based on Partey’s accounts and what little was in the public domain. The only real moral issue is the question of whether Arsenal was seeking to extend his contract on which atm we only have the gossip of ITKs to base that possibility.
bath@19: I think your legal friends have advised you well. My understanding of the legal position is that even if the club decided that the alleged incidents were workplace-related, as Partey’s employer, it could not take any action, such as suspending him, until after it had conducted its own investigation in compliance with UK law on workplace-related investigations. Undertaking such a parallel investigation into allegations as serious as rape that met the standard of being reasonable and fair would be all but impossible without exposing the club to considerable legal risk for the reason’s you state, not to mention jeopardise the criminal investigation by authorities who have some expertise and experience in investigating serious sexual allegations
@19
I agree with all of that Bath.
No doubt we will be criticized by various people but it is absurd to suggest or conclude that Arsenal Football Club supports sexual violence against women.
One of the thing about anonymity in this case that confuses me is: what is anonymity when every person and their dog in the land and abroad knows it is you anyway?
Legal stuff etc… so I don’t know how they could have stopped playing him using any excuse, but….
Ok. Most people in the land were probably not paying particular attention, it’s just football fans who were aware, but still.
And as said here and there, the most troubling thing on top of the ‘cover up’ was the attempt to extend his contract.
Bath/ Ned
It’s awful to follow up Trev’s brilliant and important article with this stuff but I believe ManUre suspended Mason Greenwood but this may have been after the nature of his charges became clear . They shipped him out if the club afterwards when the nature of his offence was in the public domain
Arseblog articulates my own view on the Partey case and the culpability of the club, far better than I ever could.
Blogs articulates the contract issue very well and as he says Arsenal have big questions to answer . But can I make one correction to his first part . You are not granted bail until you are charged with an offence and that happened yesterday and he will go to court in August when bail conditions will be discussed . So Arsenal did not play a person who was on police bail .
This in no way detracts from his major point but the songs of opposing fans are often based on tabloid rumour and until you are charged that is all this was . Nb my previous point about Wenger being a paedophile was untrue but opposing fans sang it all over the land .
The big issue is the proposed new contract and that is something he describes in a way most of us I suspect agree with . I certainly do
TTG @23, in his excellent twitter analysis MagicHat observes that the difference in the Greenwood case was that there was a recording that was already in the public domain in which the player admits to his guilt to his ‘girlfriend’ during an argument. There was therefore no question of breaching anonymity in his case.
Another good and thoughtful column. I must say I am not buying the comments that “there was nothing the club could do in the last three years”
Reading through the details I note Partey was granted pre- charge bail which is different to bail when charges are put . It is usually applied if suspects travel extensively or if there is a flight risk
So technically Partey was on a form of bail but had not been charged
Thanks for the kind comments, fellas !
A shame from a personal point of view that Partey has killed the subject stone dead.
Blogs is indeed bang on the money this morning. The club has not come out of this at all well.
It is clearly important that no discussion relating to the charges takes place in these Drinks. I think we should extend that red card to discussion and opinions about decisions taken within the club given that our own opinions are informed by neither legal knowledge nor the extent of internal debate nor indeed what actually took place within the club. Our opinions, no matter how worthy, are ill-informed and idle speculation is pointless.
I don’t expect universal agreement but I will not engage in such discussions.
There’s plenty to discuss on our injury record and potential signings.
Bath @30
So we are to be held to higher standard than Arseblog?
I think not.
C100 @30, think what you will. As I said, I don’t expect universal agreement. I know what I think. I will personally not engage with speculation and uninformed opinion.
Not even on the attempt to give Partey a new contract?
A reminder of what Arseblog wrote this morning
“It’s shameful that we were even considering renewing him.
The people at the top of the club were not blind to this situation, and still considered it in the interests of sporting expedience.”
But this is not considered a subject for discussion here?
Top work from blogs this morning indeed. I’m with you there, C100.
We must be careful not to make unfounded allegations or to prejudice a matter that is sub judice but I think the contract issue is something as fans we alll have a view on
More particularly we have before us a superb article by Trev that covers an issue that may have cost us the title last season . We should not neglect this either
Le Grove has closed comments on their interesting Partey article in light of possible legal repercussions.
TTG@23: Man U suspended Greenwood after he was arrested and detained in custody. It should be remembered that Greenwood was arrested within hours of police becoming aware of images and videos being posted online. There had not been a lengthy police investigation into a complaint beforehand to give the club a moral decision.
This ESPN article is helpful if anyone is looking for a backgrounder on the Greenwood case, and the internal ethical discussions at the OT about whether the player should be brought back into the team after the case against him collapsed.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/38240628/mason-greenwood-man-united-exit-explained-legal-trouble-2023
More helpful reading;
The Athletic on the restrictions on reporting legal cases in the UK:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3401659/2023/08/16/premier-league-footballer-arrest/
The UK Attorney General’s Office’s guidance on contempt of court and social media:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/996657/Contempt_of_court_-_fact_sheet.pdf
Ollie @1, I forgot to observe the huge irony of the reason for your delayed reading of Trev’s piece, y’athlete!
To change the subject, UEFA has hit several clubs with fines for breaching either or both of its earnings and squad cost rules. These include the mob from the Bus Stop (total fines of €31m) and Aston Villa (€11m). Both have agreed to pay the fines. Other clubs sanctioned for breaking UEFA’s financial rules are Barcelona, Lyon, Porto, Hajduk Split, Panathinaikos and Beşiktaş.
Chelsea and Villa could also be banned from registering new players for next season’s UEFA competitions unless they have a positive transfer balance by the end of the summer transfer window. Watkins or Manduke on sale?
https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/029b-1e280e8c0d89-0a2f9801ea14-1000–cfcb-first-chamber-finalises-the-assessment-of-the-financial/
Ornstein reports that Madueke has reached agreement with Arsenal over personal terms without Chelsea and Arsenal having reached any agreement.
Thanks Trev for this extremely well written, researched and informative piece.
Fair trial anyone? Or shall we proceed straight to the lynching
while singing some nice Christian hymns?
Not sure about Madueke, he reminds me a little bit of Feo.
Looks unplayable one day and then looks like a passenger
the next game. If MA and our new non-Brazilian Gabi can
get a consistent tune then he would be a great signing.
Matt
A couple of seasons ago we played PSV in the Europa League . Madueke came on as a sub for them and caught my eye . Subsequently he has joined the winger trail to the Chavs and done pretty well but is it almost a feature of wingers that they are less consistent than other players ?
I’m interested in whether we can alternate wingers who invert with wingers who traditionally get to the byline and cut the ball back – remember that ? In fairness Martinelli tries to do that but it seems to be a fashion that has dropped out of football says he sounding like an old codger- but then I am an old codger so it’s permissible !
What is clear is that we had a squad of 22 players – have lost Neto , Sterling , Tierney, Tomi , Jorginho and Partey . We’ve added Kepa and Dowman ( probably) . So we need an infill especially if we part company with Zinny , Lokonga , Hein , Vieira and Nelson who seem surplus to requirements and who may need to be sold to raise money
Indeed, bath @ 40. Well I’m not even able to run again yet, but progress, while slow, is steady.
Excellent piece, Trev. I don’t think I have seen such a detailed and informative piece on injuries and prevention anywhere else. For years we seemed to suffer from a high level of injuries – apart from those inflicted by various talentless clodhoppers- which seemed to my untrained eye to point to a need to change something in the training or conditioning. Then they seemed to reduce, until last season when the numbers exploded again. It is interesting that T*tt*nh*m, another team with a very high energy- though frankly suicidal- approach to the game, suffered an awfully high attrition rate as well. I made the point in the last close season that Arsenal players – particularly the defenders- had played far more minutes than their C130y counterparts during the 23/24 season. At the same time, we had 2 or 3 defenders with a tendency to injury in any case – Tomiyasu, Tierney, Zinchenko- which somewhat precluded making more use of rotation to mitigate this risk. At some point it had to give and last season proved to be something of a perfect storm with the usual suspects being unavailable and the likes of White and Gabriel, two of those who had played the most minutes the previous season, breaking down, It is a similar story with Saka, for whom we had no real replacement in any case.
When you look at C130y, they do make far better use of their squad to rotate all over the pitch. I can’t help thinking that this is something Mikel has to take on board.
As for knee slides, I’m pretty sure that if I were in the players position, I wouldn’t recklessly be endangering my chances of accreting generational wealth. Then again, they’re mostly in their late teens and early to mid twenties and still believe they’re made of rubber and titanium. We know through bitter experience that humans are actually made from balsawood and sellotape.
Thanks bt8, CER !
Balsa wood and sellotape, CER ?! I, and you, have reached the point where we are indeed made of titanium and plastic, if not rubber, again !
Indeed Trev! The robotically aided surgery is a quite amazing development. In the words of Shakira, Hips Don’t Lie!
Well in for the half-ton, bioniCER.
Wholly accidental, appropriately enough, Ollie!
To underline Trev’s point about knee slides wind back to the famous game at Highbury in 1997/8 where we beat Manchester United . Patrick Vieira scored a terrific goal and celebrated with a knee slide that injured his knee and put him out for some considerable time . I thought Wenger had banned knee slides at that time
Olllie @47, progress is good, even if slow. Remember that the tortoise, not the hare, won the race!
Well in for the mezzo-ton, CER. Well set up Trev.
I know that the medical department has come in for a lot of criticism over the years and, notwithstanding that my early indoctrination programs me to resist adding to it, I have to observe that they are there simply to pick up the pieces and to use superglue and rubber bands to stick the balsa wood and sellotape back together where possible and where not, to put paper over the cracks. It’s then up to the army of fitness trainers to decide what the reassembled model is capable of doing.
As to the cause of last season’s rash of injuries, in my humble opinion all of those that aren’t a result of violent conduct by an opponent, e.g. Ødegaard’s, are due to overuse and inadequate rest. A larger squad of trusted performers with more frequent rotation of starting elevens and more frequent removal of key players after 60-70 minutes would help enormously.
An interesting column on a difficult subject.
https://ballisstrife.substack.com/p/three-years-of-dismay-disgust-and
Peseta-shop Rodri signs – continuing MA’s outmoded Pep reverence … of course he’s done good stuff for the Arse, but reckon he took the wrong lessons from when we should’ve/could’ve won the league THAT season – no ??? (E.g. we could’ve been PSG-plus, but now we’s long-throw/corner Stoke with Spanish mids & management – over!)
Not a definition I recognise at all, Im afraid.
Chin striker @56
Weird how both Liverpool and Real Madrid wanted him isn’t it?
@58 – weird that a nice enuff retired lad who goes to sUM away games & does sweet reports kNose … hats orffff! Please keep it up! Am not trying to upset your world view – i just happen to see it a little differently to you – soZ!
Well in for the half-ton. CER, our new no 22.
… don’t mention daH strikerZ …
@59 – no world view shaking, just a gentle rebuttal!
Wood never pass-up ‘a gentle rebuttal’ – ta! You’re a gent.
Peseta shop Rodri who won the Euros turning the game for the Spanish , wanted all over Europe and rated possibly the best holding midfielder in the world . What a terrible signing
nobody (?!?) but you said ‘terrible’ – wee man …
Do we know when the first team members not involved in post season internationals return to training? I think the U-21s are back already.
I think it may be July 15.
https://onefootball.com/en/news/arsenal-set-date-for-official-return-to-pre-season-training-39753830
I think that article refers to last year, Bath, but I guess we can interpolate Monday 14th.
So that is 5 weeks before the start of the season. Fair enough.
And represents a 7 week break for the likes of Saliba, Gabriel, Timber and White in particular. I presume MLS, Saka, Martinelli, have an additional week or so having played the post season internationals.
TTG,
We added Norgaard too of course.
Anyway, yes, it’s going to be a busy summer as there several areas to strengthen.
Finally, a warm welcome to Martin Z and it seems from The Athletic that Gyokeres
is moving ahead.
In alumni news, Amario Cozier-Duberry, formerly of this parish, now on Brighton’s books, is going to Bolton on loan for the season. He was on loan in the Championship last season, so this looks a step down, although he only got six starts and one goal in 22 appearances last season at Blackburn. Another Academy product who once promised great things.
Good, too, to see Zubimendi done and dusted at last.
Unless Arsenal have acquired a fairy godmother our planned spending spree will necessitate us selling a number of players and some of these are likely to be fan favourites . If we are going to sign Eze and Madueke and Gyokeres on top of the deals we have already set up we are going to need to raise a lot of cash.
We have spoken on here about the likes of Zinchenko and Lokonga and Nelson and Vieira. None of these would hurt too much and we could stomach the sale of Trossard who has been a fine servant . But might we need to sell Kiwior and might we also need to contemplate the sale of a real fan favourite in Martinelli? It’s hard to see much of a future for him if we go go ahead with the mooted plans and we will need a lot of cash – and if the Saudis are offering silly money it would be hard to- and silly- to refuse it. But I have never foreseen his sale before and it will be a tough one especially for a few regulars in this bar .
Football can be a mercenary business
If our objective is to build quality backup to facilitate rotation and early substitutions then we have to be cautious about selling too many of our quality players. TTG @74, your list of likely sales is very acceptable even including Trossard if we buy Eze who would add a new dynamic to our attack but I see no point adding Madueke whose end product is little better than Martinelli and whose off the ball work is vastly inferior, if we are to lose Martinelli as a result. Likewise the addition of the Valencia CB seems pointless if as a result we must lose Kiwior. I realise we must balance the books but the primary aim must be the addition of a striker and the raising of the squad floor.
The Opta summary tables show Madueke’s stats for the past 365 days to be a bit better than Martinelli’s. Gabi’s numbers are on the left.
Ned,
As raw numbers, Madueke’s are an improvement. However, has he had to produce these with as little assistance as Martinelli? Our left side has been left to wither on the vine for tears, while Saka has help from the tight back and Odegaard. Our lopsidedness has been obvious. How much better would his numbers be if he had any help whatsoever?
CER makes an important point but then I’m a Gabigol fan.
Great piece about Zubimendi from Sid Lowe. Many years on have we finally done what Wenger failed to do and signed the new generation Xabi Alonso?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/07/martin-zubimendi-arsenal-what-he-will-bring-real-soceidad-spain-midfielder
Mike McDonald has been asking for Gyokeres all season. He’s excited.
CER@77: I take your point but only up to a point. We attack in a different style on the left than we do on the right, but I wouldn’t say that Martinelli has had no help whatsoever. One pro-Martinelli point to make is that the Opta numbers are for all competitions. The pair’s PL-only stats are pretty comparable. Mandueke’s overall stats were boosted by his European games being in the Europa Conference League, whereas Gabi was playing in the Champions League.
Many thanks Trev for a brilliantly informative post on our plague of injuries – you’ve imparted a huge amount of knowledge for us to ingest. Also your clever headline – I read it in true Kenneth Williams style!
Good to see our important signings are now coming through MZ36 will be a great addition and it appears Gyokeres will be our great big striker hope. I assume they will be here for the start of pre-season training and fully integrated by season’s opening. C100 that’s a most interesting link from Mike McDonald a good read as always.
Mandueke is a fine player who has a different style to Gabigoal – he had a more tricky skill set. One of Gabi’s strengths is the amount of defensive work he puts in when required. I would hate to see him sold, there is a higher level lurking within him which somehow needs to be extracted – he will be some player if we succeed in this. As a squad strengthening Mandueke would be a good acquisition but only for a sensible fee – the last thing I want to see is us filling Chav$ki coffers by overpaying.
>>>>>>>