As Arsenal carry out an investigation into the series of injuries which have plagued us this season, and in seasons past, Arsene Wenger has put forward a theory of his own.
The manager has suggested that players taking legal supplements themselves may be having an impact. Speaking to journalists yesterday, Wenger said of the muscular problems, “Some of them are down to the medication that the players take that you don’t even know about. Then you realise afterwards that they took this medication but that’s not prudent.
“hee toxins don’t go as quickly out of the body as they should and they the players get tired.”
He was asked specifically about what kind of medication he was talking about, and said, “If you lose your hair and you’ve taken something to make your hair grow, it might not be good, especially for the rest of your body. Medication always pushes a part of your body and is sometimes detrimental to other parts of your body.
“At the moment, we have not come to any conclusion. Every case can be very different and you need to analyse very deeply why things happen.
“I’m surrounded by people who want to enhance their performances because they have another problem in their life and it’s not always necessarily a good thing to do.”
The club’s doctors do keep a list of what each player takes in terms of supplements, painkillers, suppositories and so on, and dispense what’s needed themselves, but obviously away from the training ground a player can take anything he wants.
All the same it would seem more likely that muscle problems are more likely to be caused by physical issues than pharmacological ones, but as they do this investigation it’s probably a good idea not to rule anything out until it’s proven otherwise.
Bonus reading: an interesting piece on Goonerholic about the injury problems.
I agree with Goonerholic.
Now who’s losing hair I wonder?
Players should try yoga. Maybe that is the reason behind Gibbs’s better record this season.
laugh all you want, but yoga probably would be beneficial. its actually quite common for nfl players in the states to take ballet lessons to improve their balance. non-traditional exercises and stretching definitely can improve a player’s ‘injury-proneness.’ not so sure about hair pills though…
I’m never having another Berocca again
Centrum can piss off too.
I remember watching a panorama or dispatches about players taking recreational drugs. It said that the FA banned players regularly for 3 months sometimes as much as 12 months but protected the player by never announcing it to the public. I’m not saying this is the case with Rambo but the program ruined my trust in players. When Wilshere was out for ages last time someone accused him of this on twitter, he got angry and shut his Twitter account down. The program focused on player A, an England player who was banned for 12 months for taking cocaine, they… Read more »
interesting but i call bullshit. wouldn’t arsenals players like jack and aaron come back in almost super human condition – seeing ass they weren’t actually injured in the first place and were training like demons the whole time? the reality i they come back and struggle to make an impact and more often than not suffer a minor setback. obviously they would still need to find match fitness/sharpness. but they are clearly not players who have been in fine physical condition all along. plus we can all clearly see jack getting booted all over a football pitch every minute he’s… Read more »
Interesting, did they give any indications as to the FA’s reasoning for protecting the players’ identities? The reason a lot of recreational drugs are banned is because they are considered performance-enhancing in one way or another. I’m not suggesting many (or any) players are using cocaine, for example, for it’s stimulant properties in order to train harder or longer, but why should they be protected just because it’s considered ‘recreational’. I hope they didn’t trot out the ‘footballers as role-models’ tripe. If they were named and shamed, perhaps more players would think twice about it and act a bit more… Read more »
And I presume Fifa, Uefa and the FA are subscribers to the Wada code; I wonder what they think about them making up their own rules as they see fit.
few spelling mistakes… clutching at straws 😛
Id say arteta is taking the hair loss medication to prevent it from happening
Arteta clicks his hair in place every morning, I can’t imagine the man has ever lost a single thing.
Except in the big games
Maybe the tool in charge at loverpool Had a point. Just What are we smoking down at the Emirates?
If this is the case, surely players from other clubs are just as likely to be taking supplements. They aren’t suffering the number of injuries we are.
I’m certain this is a barbed comment referencing Giroud’s gradual progression from Oysters to Viagra to Cialis…
I’m all for doping agents….
With all their transfer claims I think they’re doing a fine job of it themselves.
Nothing 3 new signings wouldn’t have cured.
how do you propose we get around the regulations covering how many players you’re allowed in a squad? oh, wait you didn’t do carry on in your own world so sorry to intrude
We needed 3 news signings before season started…
A centre forward, a centre back and a defensive midfielder. Fatigue has caused injury and loss of form. Some of our 25 man squad includes kids and dead wood, players Wenger obviously doesn’t trust. Simply a stronger and genuinely competitive squad would have coped better.
….just for good measure Wenger brings in an injured player on loan.
I’m quite sure you’ll now retract your smarmy comment after it has been put simply to you in plain grammatically correct English.
Fair enough, there is indeed some ‘dead wood’ as you put it in our squad, but great players don’t stay so great when they’re sitting on the bench. Look at Tommy V who is way off his usual standard after a prolonged period on the bench.
Can’t be hair loss medication, if it was Rooney would be playing as many games as Diaby
Maybe. But doesn’t ‘Wazza’ just sew his pubes onto his head?
This would also explain why Steve Bould was so awesome
Whatever the reason we always seem to have an abundant number of muscle injuries every year, we need to find out and fix it.
Well at least we know gervinho wasn’t taking hair regrowth pills when he was here the crafty comber !
So that’s why Diaby is always banjaxed. Poor guy should reconcile himself to his bald self.
Sounds like a total nonsense excuse to deflect the blame onto the players and away from Arsene’s own mismanagement of the players.
Exactly.
Our injury problems are caused by dated pre-season training methods and running our players into the ground before the end of December.
Secondly it doesn’t excuse the fact that Wenger and his scouting team totally failed in the Jan transfer window to address the obvious lack of pace and striking options in the squad. For £7 million a year this is a joke, he would be fired because of his performance in any other industry. Not using your available resources to get the desired results is negligence.
Enough of this clown, win the FA Cup and be gone.
You’re all focused on the hair thing…
He’s talking about dick pills, I guarantee it.
honestly, sounds like he is taking the piss.
Medication can do harm & you also have to look at dehydrating which is a big issue in training or circuit training. Sex to can be awkward if its to much it can overwork muscles legs, thighs & so on coyg.
Anyone read Bergkamps book? Chapter on how he used to heavily study physiology, and might have gone into physio therapy. He used to train without strapping and padding to strengthen his ankles, and only use strapping in games. this was unlike the other players.
I also heard Arsenal have non-contact training. Maybe the bodies are not battle ready when it comes to proper games?