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By Siry Hardly Anyone
We have got very used of late to Arsenal being moderately high in the injury tables, but in fact, that is no longer the case at least according to our usual source: EPL Injury Tables
Taking their figures and turning them from an alphabetical into a hierarchical table we get. I’ve tried to link the injury level to the number of fouls a club makes or the number of times a club is fouled, but no correlation leaps out. Which leads to the conclusion the number of injuries is either down to pure chance or down to the way the players are trained. Or a bit of each. Here’s an extract from the table
| Club | Injuries |
| Newcastle United | 0 |
| West Ham United | 1 |
| Arsenal | 4 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 5 |
| Aston Villa | 7 |
| Manchester United | 8 |
| Chelsea | 9 |
| Sheffield United | 10 |
| Liverpool | 14 |
So we ask the question: why does Liverpool have so many injuries? The Telegraph tried to answer this saying, “the Klopp project has run in no small part on his teams’ capacity to play at a level that many opponents just struggle to match. A high press, with triggers to surround and isolate opposition, and a high defensive line to squeeze the game and cope with the risks in behind.
“With that comes a requirement for players to match the energy of any opponent, match after match. The team trains as it plays and every player’s fitness – and every player’s limits – have to be managed meticulously.”
But it is not just players who come and go. By the start of the 2022/3 season Klopp had his fourth different person in charge of his medical department.
Of course not every injury is down to being over-trained or over played or returned to the squad too early. Just as it is not just Liverpool who have players out. Arsenal too have been affected, although not as much as Liverpool and we know that Thomas Partey and Gabriel Jesus are now back, although either or both may be introduced slowly.
But what clubs are increasingly aware of is the level of fouling and tackling that the opposition are known to put in. In the table below “% above” represents the percentage that Sheffield United has more than Arsenal.
| Team | Tackles pg | % above | Fouls pg | % above | Yellow cards PG | % above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheffield United | 19.8 | 22% | 11.5 | 17% | 2.81 | 284% |
| Arsenal | 16.2 | 9.8 | 0.73 |
Partey has not played for Arsenal since the start of October, but is now back in full training and according to the media will at the very least be on he bench for monday’s game as will Gabriel Jesus.
On this subject Arteta is reported as saying, “He’s fit enough. How long he will last, that’s something different. We didn’t want to take any risks after the result we had against Newcastle. We need him fit – he’s a massive player for us and now we want to make sure we load him in the right way.”
Arteta also said that he didn’t think Gabriel Jesus would need another operation in the summer. and confirmed that Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu are still at the being assessed stage.
Jurriën Timber is back in training.
Meanwhile, the major question that the pundits are throwing around is how many wins in a row Arsenal can manage which suggests we might have an early look at the Last Six Games table which often gives us quite an insight into how a match will turn out. It’s not a perfect guide of course, but it does usually contain some valuable clues.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 3 | +22 | 18 |
| 17 | Sheffield Utd | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 17 | -10 | 4 |
The difference between the two teams is quite extraordinary when we consider not just the results but also the goals and goal difference with Arsenal on +22.
As ever our second comparison is the last six games measured on home and away performance.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal away | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 5 | +10 | 10 |
| 20 | Sheffield Utd home | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 17 | -12 | 4 |
Clearly Arsenal’s away form is not perfect as the last six games stretches back to December when the club’s form was nothing like it is now. In the league it amounted to three wins, but also defeats to Villa and Fulham…
| Date | Match | Result | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09 Dec 2023 | Aston Villa v Arsenal | L | 1-0 |
| 23 Dec 2023 | Liverpool v Arsenal | D | 1-1 |
| 31 Dec 2023 | Fulham v Arsenal | L | 2-1 |
| 30 Jan 2024 | Nottingham Forest v Arsenal | W | 1-2 |
| 11 Feb 2024 | West Ham United v Arsenal | W | 0-6 |
| 17 Feb 2024 | Burnley v Arsenal | W | 0-5 |
Sheffield United’s away win was against Luton Town by 1-3 on 10 February. But overall Arsenal’s goal difference away from home in the last six games is +22 better than Sheffield United’s home goal difference, which should give us quite a lot of good feelings.
