Injuries, injuries and more injuries

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.