Arsenal v Chelsea. The predicted Arsenal team and the omnipresent injuries

 

• Arsenal v Chelsea and the theory of dips (and how they can hurt)
• Arsenal v Chelsea? What will referee Darren England do this time?

By Tony Attwood

Bukayo Saka started on Sunday but came off after an assault in injury time by Xavi Simons.   Saka needed treatment, didn’t look too good, and slowly made his way down the tunnel.  Which made me wonder, why do they make injuried players walk back to the treatment room?

Arteta did not mention any specific injury for Saka after the game, nor was Saka mentioned in the pre-match press conference on Friday, suggesting he might well be available for this game – and if not as a starter, then maybe on the bench..

Of course, the aim of all clubs must be to avoid injuries while keeping the team performance at the highest level, which can be hard when a sophisticated team like Arsenal meets a kick-and-rush team from lower down the league.  So Arsenal, look all the top clubs have backup players available, who are of the quality that means they can step in as replacements, yet are willing to hold that position of not first choice until their time comes. 

But sadly, this is quite a rare combination of attributes.   Young players might accept it for a year or two, but then one can’t always rely on them to stay, especially if they have parents who feel they are not getting a fair “crack of the whip” or an agent who sees £££££ commission if only he can get a juicy transfer lined up for the player.

Arsenal currently have just four players out; a number that is exceeded by Tottenham Hotspur (9), Burnley (8), Chelsea (8), Brentford (7), Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland (6 each), Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester City (5).

Equal with Arsenal on four players not able to play are Crystal Palace and Manchester United, while below Arsenal in terms of injury numbers reported this morning are Wolverhampton, West Ham United and Everton (3 each), Fulham (2), and Leeds United (1).

But the question always remains, are injury numbers just chance, or down to the way clubs train their players, clubs buying players prone to injury but assuming they can handle things better, the targeting of players of one club by certain other clubs, or the bias of referees in not protecting players?   

Quite honestly, I have been looking at these figures for years, and still never really know the answer, except to say that clubs with fewer injuries tend to do better in the league.   And that is obvious because such clubs have a bigger range of players available when someone’s form drops or a change is needed to meet a specific threat from the opposition.  And perhaps even more important, they are far less tempted to rush a player back who really should have another week or two to recover.

The Metro gives us a summary of the current Arsenal situation in this regard by looking at the injury list, and at once we can see that the number of injured players varies.  In the notes above, we had four players out, this being what our source says, but here we have three.   And one of those three is in fact not injured at all!  In other words, the data is never definitive.

Max Down as we know, is out until later this month, although when he will be ready for a game we’ve no idea.  Mikel Merino’s situation is completely unknown.   But Kai Havertz should be available today, presumably on the bench.

Now if Kai is truly back and is finding his form, I think this could be a major positive for Arsenal, since the defences and their coaches from the teams we are yet to play will have been focusing on the players Arsenal have been using up front and not necessarily taking Kai into account.  And there is also the fact that Arsenal are today the second-highest goal scorers in the league.   One goal this afternoon and they will be equal top with the ManC and two goals puts Arsenal frirmly top of the charts.

And it is worth noting the table in goal scoring order since most pundits and bloggers have been telling us all season long that Arsenal will fail because they “can’t score goals.”

 

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
2	Manchester City	28	18	5	5	57	25	32	59
1	Arsenal	28	18	7	3	56	21	35	61
4	Manchester United	27	13	9	5	48	37	11	48
6	Chelsea	27	12	9	6	48	31	17	45
5	Liverpool	28	14	6	8	47	37	10	48
7	Brentford	28	13	4	11	44	40	4	43

And there is an interesting comment from the paper after this, saying “The battle in the middle of the park against Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez and Andrey Santos may suit the skipper more, but can the manager drop Eze after two goals against Spurs?”

Sports Mole’s prediction for the lineup today uses a different format and drops Odegaard

Raya;

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie;

Zubimendi, Rice;

Saka, Eze, Trossard;

Gyokeres

Give me Sport offers what appears to be exactly the same lineup, and do give us a bench of  Kepa, Calafiori, Mosquera, Lewis-Skelly, Odegaard, Madueke, Martinelli, Jesus, Havertz.

The Standard has a headline offering “team news” but doesn’t actually predict a team, which seems a bit cheeky, but maybe they realise that sometimes we do reproduce their predictions.

What is indeed interesting is the decline in the number of publications online offering to make a prediction as to what the team will be, and instead focus on “team news” which basically tells us who isn’t in the team because of injury.   It marks, I think, a rather sad decline in a fabled English newspaper tradition of getting things wrong week after week, but then never apologising.

Anyway, it’s on TV in the UK if you don’t have a ticket.  4.30 kick off.  But you probably knew that.