By Bulldog Drummond
Coming back to the list of injuries after not having followed the details since the end of last season is something of a shock. And unless you’ve been following the details I think you might be shocked too.
Ready?
As before I am using the Physioroom list. And I would warn you to sit down for this is how it looked on Saturday morning.
| # | TEAM | No of men down | Last man to fall | What he got |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tottenham Hotspur | 16 | M Dembele | Fitness |
| 2 | Liverpool | 9 | F Tavares | Illness |
| 3 | Chelsea | 8 | M Batshuayi | Fitness |
| 4 | Manchester United | 8 | P Jones | Fitness |
| 5 | Watford | 7 | B Wilmot | Knee Injury |
| 6 | Everton | 6 | Caldeira Duarte | Fitness |
| 7 | Manchester City | 5 | P Sandler | Knee Injury |
| 8 | West Ham United | 5 | E Fernandes | Leg Injury |
| 9 | Burnley | 5 | C Wood | Infection |
| 10 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 5 | J Izquierdo | Fitness |
| 11 | Crystal Palace | 4 | M Meyer | Fitness |
| 12 | Arsenal | 4 | N Monreal | Knee Injury |
| 13 | Huddersfield Town | 3 | E Durm | Fitness |
| 14 | Bournemouth | 3 | J Lerma | Fitness |
| 15 | Fulham | 3 | F Ayite | Knock |
| 16 | Newcastle United | 3 | M Diame | Hip Injury |
| 17 | Leicester City | 2 | N Mendy | Muscle Injury |
| 18 | Southampton | 2 | M Yoshida | Fitness |
| 19 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 0 | ||
| 20 | Cardiff City | 0 |
So the Tiny Totts seemed to have just got tinier with sixteen injuries. Can this be true? An outbreak of rabies perhaps?
Now this ain’t no Tottenham site so I am not going to go through it all, but what we find is that thorugh recruiting players liable to play in the WC they have come something of a cropper over fitness. Cutting out the real injuries they were reported to have
| Who are you? | What’s wrong | When back? | And v Newc? |
| H Kane | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | Started |
| D Alli | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | Started |
| K Trippier | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | |
| D Rose | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | |
| E Dier | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | Started |
| H Lloris | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | Started |
| T Alderweireld | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | |
| J Vertonghen | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | Started |
| M Dembele | Fitness | August 11, 2018 | |
| M Sissoko | Hamstring Injury | August 11, 2018 | Started |
So the number at the top of 16 is of course not true, since it was a fitness issue, and that does mean that we have to take the table a little more cautiously than normal not just for Tottenham but for all clubs.
For our match Man City’s list is shown as da Silva, Sandler and Mangala actually out and the others on the list (Laporte and Silva) being likely to play.
But what of us I hear you ask…. because as you will know (if you were paying attention) the story that Arsenal always had the most injuries circulated once more this summer. Boring I know, but that’s sports journalism for you.
Our four of course are Ramsey with a calf injury, but possibly available for Sunday, Monreal, expected back against Chelsea, Kolasinac October, and Koscielny at Christmas.
Now we saw in the earlier preview how the Guardian thought that Man City had beaten us twice at Arsenal Stadium last season, and of course this was gibberish. But for the full picture here’s the past games look below…
Overall we have won 96, lost 53 and drawn 45 games in League, FA Cup, Community Shield and League cup since the beginning of time (or 11 November 1893 to be exact. We won 1-0 in the second division.
Of course the record has been tougher since the introduction of the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the last three games have been lost, but looking at the last 12, which takes us back to March 2014, it is not at bad as one might presume if one reads the tattle and the tittle on the machine driven bloggettas. Figures from 11v11.com
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
| 29 Mar 2014 | Arsenal v Manchester City | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 10 Aug 2014 | Arsenal v Manchester City | W | 3-0 | Community Shield |
| 13 Sep 2014 | Arsenal v Manchester City | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 18 Jan 2015 | Manchester City v Arsenal | W | 0-2 | Premier League |
| 21 Dec 2015 | Arsenal v Manchester City | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 08 May 2016 | Manchester City v Arsenal | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 18 Dec 2016 | Manchester City v Arsenal | L | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 02 Apr 2017 | Arsenal v Manchester City | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 23 Apr 2017 | Arsenal v Manchester City | W | 2-1 | FA Cup |
| 05 Nov 2017 | Manchester City v Arsenal | L | 3-1 | Premier League |
| 25 Feb 2018 | Arsenal v Manchester City | L | 0-3 | League Cup |
| 01 Mar 2018 | Arsenal v Manchester City | L | 0-3 | Premier League |
So in these 12 we have four wins, four defeats and four draws. Of course the worrying bit is the run at the end with three defeats in a row with Manchester C scoring three each time.
It might be helpful if we could end that run. And we may note that prior to that we had seven games in a row in which the most scored by either team was two.
We’ll look into this further tomorrow immediately ahead of a) the return of Untold to the Swimmer and b) the return meandering to the stadium and even c) the game itself.
More anon…
Breaking: Paul Merson predicts that he will say nothing nice about Arsenal this season.
Whether Paul Merson says something nice about Arsenal or not this season, his sayings against Arsenal will not deter or hinder nor block the Gunners from beating Man City in the PL at the Ems tomorrow. For, Arsenal have fully loaded all their high caliber guns in: Cech, Bellerin, Papastethopoulos, Mustafi, AMN. Xhaka, Torreira, Ozil, Mkhi’ Auba’ & Laca’ to unleashed themselves as weapons on Man City on the Ems field of play to discharge ammunition in goals scored by them against the Man City machines in human being players form and scatter them to pieces and make a mess of them in the game with Pep Guardiola and his Man City players looking sad in disgust after the game and the press conferences have ended as they return to the Etihad with the 3-0 away defeat suffered to them by the Gunners at the Ems hanging on them.