As always we are struggling with injuries, our list is currently as follows: Ramsey, Almunia, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Cesc, Bendtner, RVP, Walcott. Some people seem to think that these injuries are the fault of the club's medical team, I would say that this idea is misguided at best and arguably stupid.
There are several reasons for our fondness of excessive injuries. Firstly we have a few injury prone players like Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby, RVP, Walcott and Johan Djourou. These players have had bad luck with recurrent injuries and this unfortunately becomes a tendency. The more injuries one has, the more likely one is to get another injury, this vicious cycle can be a cruel master. Secondly the kind of football we play and the type of smaller faster technical players that we have are both factors that predispose us more to injuries than other clubs.
We have seen Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey left with nasty shattered limbs after horror tackles in recent years, this can then leave us with a player who is then predisposed to having annoying recurrent niggling injuries. The vicious cycle means that the more injuries one has, the more the other players have to play and the less one can rotate, meaning that the more one's fit players are then predisposed to getting injured, the vicious cycle continues ad infinitum. The fact that all our players are top international players and get very few breaks from the game also plays a big role, players are much more likely to get injured if they never have decent breaks throughout the year.
Overall I think some of our bad luck with injuries has been just that, bad luck, but some of it has been due to our lack of squad balance, our lack of the bigger more robust physical players means that we are more predisposed to injuries than your average Premiership squad of players.
Anyways we still have a big squad and have enough players to put out a very decent side on Sunday at the Bridge. Fabianski will start in goal, injuries mean that the back four virtually selects itself. It is hard to see past a midfield three of Denilson-Song-Wilshere, while the front three is likely to be Arshavin-Chamakh-Nasri. The key for me will be whether we can cope with Drogba's attacking power, while Nasri and Arshavin will need to support Chamkh and make sure our lone striker is not left isolated. I agree with Arsene and who wouldn't, Chelsea is a massive marker on how far we have come and I hope it's a positive one.
5 comments:
Would think that Rosicky might be in there somewhere.......but that team could well be it. What do we have left.
Keep it close and score and then they will have to come unto us, then we score on the break-2-0. Maybe they get a late consolation 2-1 to the Arse!!
I'm sorry but I beg to differ. I don't normally disagree with your opinions but I have to here. The season upon season list of injuries that we rack up really cannot be put down to bad luck anymore. It is far too regular an occurence for that. It would be bad luck to happen a couple of seasons in a row but here we're talking about 5 in a row. Bad luck seems an unlikely cause. What is the cause? Who knows? Certainly our way of playing seems to invite the agricultural challenges from the technically deficient teams we share a division with but there must be something to do with our training that weakens our players. Our fitness is clearly as high as any other team in the Premiership but maybe the process which takes us there makes our players more injury-prone. I don't pretend to know the answer but there is definitely a problem. And I wish I could have bet on Gibbsy picking up an injury this week - last season when he came back having escaped a major layoff after a scare he got his serious injury straightaway.
I'm not saying it's all bad luck, it's multifactorial as I've tried to lay out in the article.
A decent part of it may well be that we do have too many smaller physically weaker players who tend to get injured more often than the Songs of this world.
The point I was also trying to make is that bad luck will result in more bad luck, as injuries lead to more injuries due to their strecthing of the squad.
Hopefully we'll go optimistic in our lineup. Fabianski=Sagna-Kol-Squal-Clichy=Song-Wilshire-Nasri=Rosicky-Chamakh-Asrahavin.
Basically the same as you suggested but allowing Nasri to be the central focus of our attack and use Rocky on the wings, sacrificing a bit of Jack's creativity and Denilson all together.
Personally, spiteful though it may sound, I think our players are a bit soft and cosseted.
That doesn't mean we don't have players with legitimate injuries. I just feel there is a culture at the club where it is acceptable to pull out if you have a little niggle. And many of our players consider a hang nail as a little niggle.
Too many just don't have that fighting spirit and winning mentality. They've been overpaid too early in their careers and they are content to just pick up their pay packet each week with no real desire to achieve more than that.
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