Untold Injury Index

Untold Injury Index – Gameweek 31

By Dale Higginbottom

Gameweek 31 and results have been tough to come by of late and three draws in succession is not the ideal form for a title-chasing team. There are many factors that can explain some of the results including poor referees, fatigue and international breaks. Let’s look at our weekly round-up of injuries and see if they could’ve been a factor.

Arsenal Vs Blackburn

Arsenal (8 injuries)

• Goalkeeper – Fabianski (9), Szczesny (2)
• Defence – Vermaelen (27), Djourou (3), Gibbs (10)
• Midfield – Frimpong (29), Ramsey (15), Denilson (6)
• Attack – No injuries reported

Additional issues: Walcott and Song returned to the squad after injury and started.  Diaby and Fabregas were also doubts and started on the bench. Van Persie and Bendtner were both in the squad after slight doubts, van Persie playing the whole game and Bendtner coming on in the second half.

Wigan Vs Tottenham

Tottenham (6 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported.
• Defence – King (24), Kaboul (12), Woodgate (4), Gallas (7)
• Midfield – Palacios (3), Bale (5)

Additional issues: Huddlestone returned to the squad but did not play. Pienaar was a doubt but was on the bench, he also did not play.

West Brom Vs Liverpool

Liverpool (4 injuries)

• Goalkeeper – No injuries reported
• Defence – Kelly (3), Aurelio (10)
• Midfield – Gerrard (7)
• Attack – Shelvey (5)

Additional issues: Agger and Johnson were both replaced early in the game after picking up injuries. Suarez was a doubt but started and played the whole game.

West Ham Vs Man Utd

Man Utd (8 injuries)

• Goalkeeper – Van der Sar (1), Lindegaard (2)
• Defence – Ferdinand (13), Brown (1), O’Shea (7), Rafael (4)
• Midfield – Hargreaves (30), Fletcher (2)
• Attack – No injuries reported.

Additional issues: Anderson was doubtful for the game and started on the bench but did not feature on the pitch. Park was also a slight doubt but started the game, coming off after 64 minutes.

Stoke Vs Chelsea

Chelsea (2 injuries)

• Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported
• Defence – Alex (19)
• Midfield – Benayoun (25)

Additional issues: Despite featuring for Israel in mid-week Benayoun is not considered fully fit to feature in the Chelsea squad. Kalou was a doubt and started on the bench.

Man City Vs Sunderland

Man City (3 injuries)

• Goalkeeper – Given (4)
• Defence – Boateng (7), Richards (8)
• Midfield, attack – No injuries reported.

Additional issues: Tevez and Yaya Toure were both doubts for the game but both started and played the full 90 minutes.

So what’s the situation this week? Well we’re still up at the top, still suffering a high number of injuries but United have caught up and matched us with 8 players unavailable. The rest all hover around the 2 – 4 mark with the Totts still suffering due to their inability to buy a defensive player that stays fit.

Eight injuries is about as much as any squad would want to have to deal with and for us obviously it’s a few too many. Whilst the missing personnel are not necessarily all key players, the fact that players have just returned and lack match sharpness is surely a key factor. In these games where we lack cohesion, it often needs a stroke of luck or a moment of individual skill to lift the team and drive home the result. Sadly on Saturday, this didn’t come.

United’s troubles are at the back. Two goalkeepers, four defenders and two holding midfielders all out injured and on top of that they have Evans suspended. It therefore needed an in-form Rooney to save them but hopefully for us , this cannot happen every game, particularly now that he’s likely to be suspended for two games for his potty-mouth.

City’s impressive win against Sunderland and the Tiny Totts’ draw at Wigan looks to have swung the final Champions League place in favour of the Manchester team. It would take a massive effort for the Totts to overhaul either City or Chelsea so I think their only hope of Champions League football next season is to win it this season, Ha!

Despite again only a handful of injuries, Chelsea’s rusty squad had their thoughts on Wednesday’s Champions League game so could only manage a 1-1 draw at Stoke. We’ve said here all along that they don’t hav a squad to fight on all four fronts and whilst injuries have been kind, fatigue must be catching up with their aging squad a bit. They could still win the Champions League but after Saturday’s draw, it’s all they can play for. United may drop enough points for us to catch them, they won’t drop enough for Chelsea to overtake too.

I don’t think I really need to mention Liverpool any more, minimal injuries, team not good enough. They were dealt a tough card with the two defenders picking up injuries during the game but let’s hope they can put in a performance against us like that.

Since the Carling Cup final Arsenal have had three draws in three league games, not the best run of results considering the opposition but considering the injuries it’s not all that bad. The injury numbers for us for those weeks have been 7, 9 and 8 respectively and to have that many players missing is always going to be difficult to manage.

I thought I’d look back at our other games in which we had 7 or more players out and there was a spell between gameweek 5 and gameweek 11 where we had this problem, shall we look at those games?

GW5	GW6	GW7	GW8	GW9	GW10	GW11
Sunderland (A)	West Brom (H)	Chelsea (A)	Birmingham (H)	Man City (A)	West Ham (H)	Newcastle (H)
1-1	2-3	2-0	2-1	0-3	1-0	0-1
D	L	L	W	W	W	L
7	8	9	8	6	7	7

So, as you can see, when you look at these results and add the recent run of three draws it seems that 7 is maybe something of a tipping point. In each of the games in this early run we either dropped points or were not in the slightest bit as dominant as we have shown in other games. In the middle of this run you can see the inclusion of the Man City game, a game that was a great performance and a game we dominated but note the number of injuries was back down to 6 for that week. I’m not sure why seven seems to be such a key number but I plan to delve deeper into this once we have a data set for the full season.

Obviously we have lost or drawn games with fewer than 7 recorded injuries but it seems odd that results or performances are so poor once we hit this threshold of 7. Our average for the season so far is 5.97 players missing per game (so effectively 6 with one of Vermaelen’s toes fit to play), but when we get just one more player out than the average, it seems to become a struggle.

It’s probably correct to think that the specifics of the players unavailable will have an impact, as seven injuries to players such as Frimpong or Gibbs would impact less on the team than seven injuries to players at the level of Fabregas or van Persie, however when we get 7, 8 or 9 players out, it’s quite likely that at least 2 or 3 of them are 1^st choice players and therefore the available team is maybe a significant amount weaker than when we have 4 or 5 players missing.

So are we going to remain at a level above 7 for the rest of the season? I hope not but I also doubt it. There were a number of players returning from injuries this week including Walcott, Song, Fabregas and Diaby. Over the next week or so they’ll return to match fitness and as the recovery time is now a week between most games the numbers should hopefully reduce to a more manageable level. Fabianski and Vermaelen are the only two players who are currently expected not to feature for the rest of the season so we can hope that the remaining 6 on this week’s list will gradually return and be available for selection within the next two months.

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