Just how many more injuries has Arsenal had than any other team this season?

 

 

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By Tony Attwood

Have Arsenal seriously been hindered by injuries this season, when compared with other clubs?

I have tried to get a picture of the number of games each Arsenal player has not been available because of injury this season and although data is available in a crude form I couldn’t find anyone having totalled up the number of games missed up to the present moment.  So I’ve done the calculations myself – which means there might be a slip in here somewhere, but hopefully nothing significant.   And talking of “significant” it is interesting that it is quite hard to find data relating to the number of games missed through injury in recent seasons.  I wonder why that is.   However here is the data for this season.

• Lewis-Skelly: 3
• Jorginho: 3
• Timber 4
• Martinelli: 4
• Sterling: 4
• Gabriel 7
• Zinchenko 7
• Merino: 7
• Odegaard: 8
• Tierney 12
• Saka: 13
• Havertz: 14
• Calafiori 15
• White 17
• Tomiyasu: 34

Now of course it can be argued that in some cases although a player might be part of the first-team squad, he is not expected to play many games, and that makes the calculations difficult to compare between one team and another.  A player who was basically a backup being out for much of the season through injury is quite different from a first-team regular being out for a few months.

But even allowing for that, those figures are enormous.   And either Arsenal have been incredibly unlucky or else some of the teams in the Premier League of more dubious nature have been targetting Arsenal players, perhaps having noticed just how few injuries Arsenal had in the last couple of campaigns.

Whatever the cause, the fact is that although a player might then come back from injury and be officially ready to play, that does not mean he has his old form and fitness back, and it can take a number of games for a player to be back to the old standard.

But of course one the season is running there are no friendlies or other unimportant games where the player who is not fully up to speed can be allowed to regain his full form.   What’s more some clubs of dubious renown, anxious to get one over on Arsenal, can target such a returning player, knowing his vulnerability.

The Premier Injury website shows four players ruled out for the Liverpool game: Jesus, Tomiyasu,  Gabriel and Havertz. Liverpool have just the one: Joe Gomez.   But looking at the cumulative effect we might also note that the Physioroom injury table shows Arsenal having suffered the most injuries to players this season of any club: a total of 27.   The next clubs in the table for the total number of injuries in the season are Brighton and Tottenham each with 22.   Liverpool whom we play this weekend are on 14, fractionally over half the number that Arsenal have suffered.  And of course as we have seen, an injury can take a player out of the team for months.

So Arsenal have suffered 93% more injuries to players this season than Liverpool, which is extraordinary.   It is almost as if some clubs have been targetting Arsenal players – or maybe referees have deliberately allowed nasty tackles to happen – but of course, we don’t have clear information on such matters.

But what we can say in the face of this incredible number of player injuries this season, is that it is wholly remarkable that Arsenal have managed to stay in the top five, let alone currently be second.

And yet we have people writing articles saying that Arsenal’s performance has been so awful that Arteta needs to be dismissed and a new manager brought in.  As if a new manager is going to be able to reduce the number of injuries players get.

Of course, the other way of looking at this is to say, “bring in some more players so that we have backups,” but that has to be thought through a bit.   What the club would actually be saying is “Come to Arsenal – we get more injuries than any other club, so even as a back up you’ll get some games.”   But behind that is the  secondary statement, “and you are likely to be crippled too.”

This injury record is, in fact, making it ever harder for Arsenal to recruit backup players – and indeed could well be pushing some potential new signings away.   (And don’t think our highlighting the issue makes any odds – players and their agents have all this data and study it long before deciding which club to go to.  The only people who don’t use it are the journalists.  Figures are from Premier League Injuries.

 

Position	Team	Total Injuries in 24/25
1	Arsenal	27
2	Brighton	22
3	Tottenham	22
4	Aston Villa	21
5	Man Utd	20
6	Ipswich	19
7	Man City	18
8	Chelsea	17
9	Newcastle	17
10	Crystal Palace	14
11	Liverpool	14
12	Wolves	13
13	Leicester	13
14	Brentford	12
15	Everton	11
16	Nottingham Forest	10
17	Southampton	10
18	Fulham	9
19	Bournemouth	9
20	West Ham	6

 

If you were a Premier League player would you willingly go to Arsenal knowing these figures?  (Although to be fair, you probably wouldn’t go to West Ham either.)