Injuries

[Supagoon]

Its too simplistic to blame it all on training.

Theo, Debuchy, Giroud all have non training related injuries.

Jack has had ankle problems for years, and his ankle certainly went over horribly v The Scum.

Gnabrys exact injury hasnt really been announced as far as I can see (Bit odd)

Sanogo- seems both injury prone and some on here suggest that he will remain injured till he leaves.

That leaves Arteta Rambo and Monreal. It is most odd to get 2 injuries within minutes. Whats annoying is that there are loads of very able Physio/ sports medicine experts yet he remains loyal to his current staff.

We do tend to play physically unimposing players by and large and that sort of physique seem to lead to injures occuring more often anyway- In other wirds it may be as much about our type of favoured players

Well the impact injuries are different. Not sure you can do anything to prevent Ramsey's injury with Shawcross can you. Bones break.

Giroud and Debuchy just unfortunate. But Ramsay's hammers, Cesc's Hammer's, Arteta might be getting old, but muscular ones are those that need to be looked at.

Wilshere's ankles have taken a lot of heat in his young career, we need to manage him, especially at his age, if we want to avoid him becoming the next owen. Rotating the squad is key, so having a squad of the appropriate size is needed.

But if rested players injure themselves within 30mins that cannot be acceptable. I'm quite sure when wenger goes a new coach will bring in his own staff and we'll probably see a change in our injury fortunes. But I'd bet they wouldn't change if we carried out the same training methods, warm up, warm downs etc.

Chelsea aren't the big brutish team they used to be, they like to pass it around when they can, but they're a hell fitter side than we are. They have moved from a physical side to a more nimble one yet they injury record has improved!

Having said if you're asking your flair players to get stuck in, expect them to get injured more often. Having physical power in the right areas can certainly help us, ie. defensive midfield.

Buying injury prone players like Sanogo is always a risk. So Arsene can only blame himself and should not be too surprised. He must have had a degree of confidence that he has no serious underlying issues and that Sanogo could maintain his fitness.

[Chippy]

OK split this away from the scum thread, cos we haven't had a thread on this for a few months, which is an eternity on here.

[QuartzGooner]

Injuries can happen at any time to any player though so not sure you can look too deep into it, you or I could pull a muscle getting out of bed, what is criminal is that it's not a new problem so to bury his head in the sand in the Summer and do nothing to prepare for it is criminal.

In terms of buying cover, we have left ourselves short, agreed.

But with the players we do have, the club has done a lot to try and understand what is behind these injuries over the last two seasons -

Increased physiological tests.
Revamping training grounds.
New fitness trainer.

I think our injuries are down to a mixture of -

Overplaying younger players.

Having the lightest and shortest squad in the division whilst the game has got faster and players more athletic.

Having a once state of the art, but now behind the times, training centre i.e. Indoor Pitch surface not as modern as others.

[Theoperator]

OK split this away from the scum thread, cos we haven't had a thread on this for a few months, which is an eternity on here.

What? a thread on it all being Wengers fault? was it really a few months ago

Pod out 4 months in 2013, Ozil out a month, 17 hamstrings, 9 calf strains, 11 thigh strains, 15 ankles....

Keep Diaby out of this please.

I so wish someone would ask of the board why our injuries are so much more common than other teams, at the shareholder AGM rather than why Pasties arent for sale for weekday matches in the Block 8 kiosks

[Yankee_Gooner_Dandee]

I have no proof and obviously we'll never know, but I would bet everything I have that if we had a different manager we would have less injuries.

[OneBardGooner]

There does seem to be a connection between how our players train and play and how others do....Maybe 'Tippy Tappy Training & Playing weakens the body ?

[clockender1]

i wonder what injury prevention work our lot do - weights, pilates, body alignment etc. i can't recall ever seeing pics of our lot in the gym pulling weights.

i think wonga optimizes our players to sprint 5 yards, stop, then pass sideways.

whatever it is, its crap - 1700 days between our 26 man squad is 51 days each - 7 weeks. i'm surprised the board don't call wonga out on it bearing in mind the cost.

we should be sponsored by fucking BUPA.

[topgoon]

Don't completely agree with you on the injury front OBG, it's not cover we need. It stopping these f**king injuries in the first place.

The way we get injuries, Arteta's replacement if we had got one, would be injured right now.

Costa plays with a niggling hamstring every week. I haven't watched their games but I imagine he does little running and just positions himself in the right place and the rest of the scummy chavs just play to his strengths. He will play us and Sporting,bum us both and we will pick up yet more injuries.

Ramsey has looked out of sorts for a good few weeks and should have played less but as usual we over use players till they pick up a long term injury. The only difference between Rambo and Costa is management of the player. Maureen probably doesn't do it,his medical team does it. Bet you Shad Forsythe gets told what to do about players in the fabled 'red zone' and not the other way round.

How the hell does Benteke rip his Achilles and is back playing football,yet 9 months to the week after Walcott does his cruciates and he is still not ready. He has only started 30+ games once in his 8yrs with us. He had no history of injuries before he joined us.

Van Judas,Fabregas,Flamini,Nasri,Arshavin,Walcott,The Ox, all soon to be joined by Alexis,Chambers, etc as players who were not known as injury prone till they signed for us and are still suffering after they leave.

Time for a new manager. Arsene =Merde

[goonersid]

Awful news!!!!!!!!!!

[QuartzGooner]

i wonder what injury prevention work our lot do - weights, pilates, body alignment etc. i can't recall ever seeing pics of our lot in the gym pulling weights.

i think wonga optimizes our players to sprint 5 yards, stop, then pass sideways.

My tuppence worth -

I wrote in a previous post my thoughts on why we get so many injuries - Smaller player size compared to opponents, past training pitch deficiencies and overplaying younger players.

But having talked to past and present players about training [DB10Gooner to doubt this ], and having been to a couple of the public training days, I believe our squad do exercises that are reasonable.

Players under 21 do very little load bearing exercise, which is correct because their bones are still malleable.

The over 21's do core strength exercises and some Pilates based exercises, such as alternate leg raise push ups which are great for working the core, and medicine ball step ups too.

I know that when Tony Colbert arrived as a trainer, he reduced hernias from six per season to none at all for three seasons, then there were very few after that.
He basically banned sit-ups, replaced them with more efficient and safer crunches.

The players are also seldom allowed excessively sweet or salty foods.

The players have frequent blood tests too, mineral and vitamin levels are checked, and dental visits are frequent.

One thing I believe is that we do not use Osteopaths enough.

They are not the answer to everything, but I know from my own treatment of a serious muscle/tendon injury and other minor injuries that a good Cranial Osteopath is a definite catalyst for healing.

Also that Pilates can educate the body to move in a certain way that prevents injury, especially engaging the core muscles rather than taking strain on the lower back - after doing Pilates for a while the muscle intelligence becomes automatic.

Osteopaths have been used, famously Robert Pires got over his serious injury using Phillipe Boixel, a specialist conditioner, plus some Osteopathic treatments.

I also know that some of our French contingent of years past went to Osteopaths on their own accord and at their own expense, without telling Wenger, and it helped heal and prevent injuries.

But as far as I know we do not use Osteopaths to prevent injuries, and I think this is remiss.

For a relatively low cost, the players could see Osteopaths weekly or at least every fortnight, and have their posture noted, and tweaked where needed, to prevent posture inbalances and the injuries that can result from these.

We do though do injury prevention with Physios, as the swimming pool at the training ground is surrounded by water level viewing glass so posture can be examined.

[DB10GOONER]

Theoperator - I think most are saying that the style of training contributes to injuries rather than the injuries happen during training sessions.

Quartz - miles off with the height thing. Absolute myth. It's about build and muscle mass, not height. What height are the two most injury prone players that have ever played for Arsenal; RVJC and Diaby? 6 foot and 6'4" respectively. Hardly FrankSav or OneBardEwok size now are they? But look at RVJC and Diaby's skinny little legs and you will begin to see the problem.

Then look at players that had large muscle mass on their legs in past eras; Dixon, Winterburn, Wrighty for example. Maradonna too. All under 5'10", all powerfully built with low centre of gravity. All did not suffer more injuries than the average player during their career. And remember they played in a far far tougher era when the game was far more physical and with a lot more contact, on shitter pitches and with fuck all "sport technology" like light balls, light boots and advanced physio stuff to protect and help them.

The problem is there has been a move away from over developing calf and thigh muscles because of medical and physio evidence showing long term knee and ankle problems related to supporting that muscle mass. But in the short ( ) term that over developed muscle mass prevented these stupid niggling and re-occuring injuries many of our lightly built players now suffer. The muscle mass protected the bone and the ligaments and tendons.

Of course many of those well built players needed to have their ankles fused and knees cleaned out after they retired, but to be honest I don't really give a fuck about the millionaire players' long term health, only that they can deliver for The Arsenal during their time earning millions with us.

[augie]

The thing about avoiding ramsey's injury is particularly relevant when you consider that he was wearing the hamstring support shorts under his proper shorts (as seen when he went to the ground holding his hamstring btw) - clearly he had an issue before the game or he wouldn't have worn those hamstring shorts, so why was he not rested for this fixture ? Another example of mr bullshit over-playing players despite the fact that he was the first pr.ck to come out with this redzone bullshit a few years ago

[DB10GOONER]

The thing about avoiding ramsey's injury is particularly relevant when you consider that he was wearing the hamstring support shorts under his proper shorts (as seen when he went to the ground holding his hamstring btw) - clearly he had an issue before the game or he wouldn't have worn those hamstring shorts, so why was he not rested for this fixture ? Another example of mr bullshit over-playing players despite the fact that he was the first pr.ck to come out with this redzone bullshit a few years ago

In fairness though a lot of players wear them for support and as a "preventative" measure. It's not always an indicator of a current problem. Not saying Ramsey didn't have a problem (he may well have had) just that I wouldn't read too much into what he was wearing... maybe... kind of...

[clockender1]

The muscle mass protected the bone and the ligaments and tendons.

exactly. i was told when i did my ACL that i'd need to build muscle in my quads and supporting areas to prevent re-injury.

we seem not to do that.

[northbank123]

The muscle mass protected the bone and the ligaments and tendons.

exactly. i was told when i did my ACL that i'd need to build muscle in my quads and supporting areas to prevent re-injury.

we seem not to do that.

And that's ultimately what this is about. Re-injury more than injury. We had players like BFG, Koscielny and Giroud who against all odds stayed fit last year despite being flogged. But the issue is players clearly not building fitness back up after injuries. Ramsey was out for three months instead of one last year because we pushed the recovery, now he's done his hamstring again. Like when Fabregas had a recurring problem with his hamstrings. Arteta and Wilshere have both been carrying minor injuries for about three years. Walcott fleets from one layoff to the next and probably did his ACL because we flogged him too soon after coming back from injury. Vetmaelen never really got for again after missing half a season and our catastrophic management of the injury. The less said about Rosicky and Diaby the better. Once players get injured we just don't know how to manage them back tofull fitness.