Have Arsenal really had more injuries than their competitors?
As Martin Skrtel exploited familiar fragility in the Arsenal defence to head Liverpool's late equaliser on Sunday, you had to wonder whether it would all have been rather different if Laurent Koscielny was on the pitch. But Koscielny is in Arsenal’s treatment room just now. Along with Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey, Mikel Arteta and Jack Wilshere.
It is a place that other first-team regulars, notably Theo Walcott, Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Debuchy, Kieran Gibbs and Nacho Monreal, have become familiar with this season.
Persistent injuries were an issue that was even addressed by chief executive Ivan Gazidis in his quarterly update to Arsenal shareholders on Friday. “It is frustrating for everyone that the run of injuries we have sustained in the first third of the season has meant we have only seen flashes of this talented squad's true potential,” he wrote.
The frustration for supporters, however, is that it feels like this is nothing new. Arsenal led the Premier League for most of last season before their fleeting title challenge was derailed amid the loss of Ramsey, Ozil, Wilshere and Walcott. Other recent campaigns have followed similarly infuriating patterns. So does the anecdotal sense of Arsenal suffering disproportionately really stand up to scrutiny?
Ben Dinnery is the founder of Premier Injuries Ltd and the country’s leading data injury analyst. With the cooperation of some clubs, and help from other sources, he has compiled a database of comparative Premier League injuries over the past decade.
The clubs’ reluctance to reveal certain details means that the research cannot be absolutely perfect, and will be disputed in places, but it is certainly the most comprehensive available analysis. And Dinnery’s stats, exclusively prepared for the Telegraph, clearly demonstrate that Arsenal do experience an unusually high number of injuries, even if Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United have also been similarly affected.
In the 11 seasons researched from 2003-4 to 2013-14, Arsenal suffered 312 significant injuries which led to the player being out for 10 days or more. That is exactly 100 more than Chelsea, while Arsenal’s total number of injuries was above the Premier League average in 10 out of the 11 campaigns, including each of the last seven completed seasons. The trend is continuing, perhaps even accelerating, this year.
With 25 injuries, Arsenal have had more than any other Premier League club since August. Perhaps even more revealing, however, is the total number of days lost to significant injury. In the decade since 2004-5, Arsenal players have lost 13,161 days to injury. Only Newcastle have lost more at 13,344.
Yet the statistics become even starker when compared to Arsenal’s main rivals, especially Chelsea. In that same period, Chelsea have lost first-team players for almost half the number of days as Arsenal at 7,217. There are also significant differences with Liverpool at 9,287 days, Manchester City (10,053) and Everton (10,530). Once again, Tottenham and Manchester United are relatively high on this table at respectively 12,050 and 11,833 days, albeit still behind Arsenal.
This season, the trend is again set to continue. In terms of significant injuries (when a player is out for 10 days or more), Arsenal are behind only Newcastle and Manchester United of the 20 Premier League clubs. Yet add in every injury and they have already lost players this season for 874 days – more than any other Premier League club. Leaders Chelsea, by comparison, have so far lost players for only 256 days.
The pattern is again reinforced when you look back over recent seasons. Arsenal had the highest number of days lost to significant injuries last season, in 2009-10 and 2007-8, as well as the second highest in 2011-12 and 2010-11.
What does it keep happening?
This is much more than a million-dollar question when you consider the knock-on implications of losing so many key players for critical matches. It is a question that Arsenal have explored deeply over the past year – even the playing surface at the Emirates has been analysed – and they believe that it is down to a combination of reasons.
“We continue to work hard to improve our prevention of injuries and to accelerate recovery but it is clear there is no single contributing factor,” Gazidis told shareholders last week. That is hard to dispute but there is still more that can be done with the data to help further understanding.
As well as the absolute injury numbers, Dinnery has also broken down his research to separate muscular injuries from the rest. There is a belief in the sports medicine profession that muscular, or what are termed soft-tissue injuries, are almost always preventable.
It is why Wenger has been so particularly perturbed by the frequent absence this season of both Ramsey and Arteta to muscle problems. Impact-related ailments, of the sort suffered by Giroud and Wilshere, are more freakish and less controllable. Arsenal, though, have also had the most muscular injuries in the Premier League so far this season at 14. The comparative figures dating back over the seven previous seasons to 2007-8 also show that only Manchester United have had more.
Questions, then, can legitimately be asked about Arsenal’s methods. Unless your name is Raymond Verheijen – the former Wales physio who has claimed that there is a “career-threatening process” at Arsenal that is structural – few professionals in the industry are willing to speak openly about their theories. One former Arsenal player, however, told The Telegraph that Wenger’s training methods – which place an emphasis on relatively short but intense sessions – is a part of the issue.
“Players need more rest now and more individually tailored programmes but Arsene has his methods that he believes in,” he said. There was a sense that Wenger did ease the intensity in the second half of last season following a spate of injuries but that he has largely since gone back to his methods.
Other recurring comments are that Wenger should be more willing to rotate his squad and be more cautious when bringing players back from injury. The suspicion of too many games was hard to avoid in the case of Wilshere in 2011 but also Giroud and Koscielny over the past year. Inside Arsenal, there is also a feeling that the size of the squad might be a comparative factor.
Against that, it has been noticeable this season that Chelsea and Southampton have largely avoided injuries and relied heavily on a smaller core of players. There are many conflicting theories. Research by one Premier League club - who have an excellent injury record – has concluded that the “over-playing” theory is largely a myth and that, with the right recovery, physical limits are more often reduced by mentality.
Against that, some voices close to Arsenal have argued that fitness coach Tony Colbert and assistant Boro Primorac can be too willing to encourage Wenger to push the players.
What is certain is that Wenger can seem overly paternalistic in keeping faith with players who have suffered repeated injuries. Abou Diaby would be the most obvious example but, if problems continue to recur, is there also an argument that difficult decisions may ultimately have to be made in relation to a Ramsey, Wilshere, Walcott or Gibbs? Given that players with a history of major injuries are often more prone to connected problems, there is the clear danger that Arsenal have become stuck in a vicious cycle.
In the thick of it: Arsene Wenger's training methods are under scrutiny
Some of Wenger’s recent recruitment has also posed questions. Yaya Sanogo had suffered regularly with injury earlier in his career while, this year, both David Ospina and Kim Kallstrom were signed even with existing ailments.
There is also the perennial question of whether Arsenal’s style of play – and the perception that they are somehow “soft-centred” – has been a contributory factor. As well as the high incidence of muscular injuries, there have certainly been periods when they have suffered an unusual number of serious impact injuries.
In 2007-8, for example, only five of Arsenal’s 32 injuries were muscular. At that time, Wenger certainly felt Arsenal were victims of something more sinister than bad luck or mistakes in their own preparation.
“Ask any player who’s played here, ask Vieira or Petit, if he has been targeted without any intention of playing the ball, just to kick him out of the game and they’ll tell you they have,” he said. “Look at the players we have lost here. Diaby, deliberate foul from behind. Rosicky, deliberate foul. Eduardo, deliberate foul. Walcott, deliberate foul. Adebayor and Sagna got injured with a deliberate foul on him.”
According to Opta, Arsenal have been the most tackled team in the Premier League this season and also the fourth most fouled.
What is being done?
In fairness, Wenger has complained far less in recent years of his players being targeted and spoken much more of how he must look within for some answers. Significant changes have been made, most obviously in the appointment last summer of Shad Forsythe as the new head of athletic performance enhancement.
Forsythe was part of Germany’s backroom staff at the World Cup and, according to Wenger, there have been “a lot of changes” since his arrival. Wenger says that the changes largely relate to preparation and the club have moved to more individually tailored programmes.
Small things, like seeing the substitutes rotationally warm-up even before they might come on, are noticeable from the sidelines. “We know a lot more than 18 years ago when I arrived but still not enough to predict 100 per cent scientifically what happens to everybody,” said Wenger.
Warming up: Arsenal's substitutes go through rotational exercises
Changes are also being made at the club’s training ground, with the club’s board willing to spend whatever Wenger wants in terms of the backroom support and facilities. Arsenal first moved to their London Colney base in 1999, with Wenger designing the facility to a specification that made it widely regarded as the very best in the Premier League. Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur have since built even more modern training centres and Arsenal are now preparing to seek planning permission on projects that, over the next three years, will run into the millions of pounds.
The club have already begun working with architects on a new athletic development centre within the Colney base, as well as additional space for offices and analysis. A new medical centre was completed at Colney in October 2011 and, at the club’s Hale End Youth Academy, construction work will take place over the next year on new medical and educational facilities, as well as a new gym.
“We are also reviewing our training ground facilities at London Colney and will be submitting a detailed planning permission application for a significant new development in the New Year,” says Gazidis. “This is all designed to ensure we continue to move forward as a club on and off the pitch and create the best possible environment for success. One thing I can assure everyone about is that we have some of the very best people in the game working on this at this club.”
The proof, of course, will be in the comparative injury stats in the coming seasons. No improvement is yet evident and, indirectly, it is no exaggeration to suspect that Wenger’s job may ultimately depend on finding the right solutions. Only three times since 2003-4 has a team ever won the Premier League with more than 27 injuries.
Arsenal have had that many or more every year since 2007. It is surely also no coincidence that Arsenal won their last title in 2003-4, the season when they had their fewest injuries of Dinnery’s 11 year study. The coming weeks,inevitably, will see the focus turn to Wenger’s transfer strategy.
His tactics will also be endlessly scrutinised but, if there is one single change in 2015 that could make Arsenal truly competitive with Chelsea and Manchester City again, it would be for his key players to be consistently fit and healthy.
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