Thursday, March 28, 2024

Wenger takes aim at ‘this guy’ Verheijen

Arsene Wenger has defended his training methods and the work of his medical team by stressing that injuries are part and parcel of football. 

Having lost both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott on Tuesday night and with Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck already sidelined the Gunners could be forced to field either Joel Campbell or Alex Iwobi on the right side of midfield against Swansea. It’s not ideal, but nor is it the end of the world.

Making clear that a huge amount of work goes on behind the scenes at London Colney the boss hit out at the constant sniping of Raymond Verheijen – a self-styled injury guru who appears to believe all Arsenal’s fitness problems are caused by Wenger’s supposedly backward methods – and those who choose to over analyse injury scenarios.

“This guy looks like he knows absolutely everything. I am amazed that he knows more than all our physios and all our doctors,” Wenger told press on Friday.

“I trust my medical staff to do well and my coaching staff to do the fitness planning very well.

“I can only invite you one day to see what work is done behind (the scenes). We have some players who are more injury-prone than others, but we are very well organised on that front.

“We have to analyse every single case and every single exercise, but also I think you have to not over-analyse when players are injured. When a player is injured, they are injured, this has always happened.

“We have not too many muscular injuries but it is post-international games we get all these injuries and is it linked with that? I don’t know. What I’m focused on tomorrow is to continue our run (in the Premier League).”

He continued: “It is easy [to criticise training methods], yes. We have players every year who play 50 games and some who play less games because they are more injury prone.

“Sometimes you know ideally that you have to rest a player because he has given a lot, but if he has played extremely well in the game before and you have won and the player says he feels perfectly alright, it is difficult to say ‘you don’t play’.”

Arsene Wenger isn’t the only manager to be criticised by Verheijen. The Dutchman, who has worked closely with Guus Hiddink in the past, is the ‘go-to guy’ for sensationalist quotes whenever an injury crisis hits a high profile club and has also taken aim at the likes of Roy Hodgson, David Moyes and a host of others.

He backs up his constant attacks via Twitter – where he still using an egg as his profile picture – and appears to have recently published a book…so no wonder he’s upping his personal PR campaign. There’s a good reason no club will touch him with a bargepole at the moment…he’s a bit of a chump.

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Pedant

Things are so much better than they were. Admittedly the right side of attack isn’t looking good but 7 potential top players out is beyond crazy.

Raymond Verheijen sounds a tool, either looking for a job and/or selling his book.

GoonerJ

How is it better exactly? As bad as things were I don’t remember 7 first team players being out at the same time…… And not signing 1 outfield player makes this even worse

Pedant

Look at the stats. They will be worse with Theo and the OX but this article is only from a week ago.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/23/stats-show-arsenals-fitness-team-are-working-wonders-this-season-5458461/

oroshzhaki

The dutch Greg stobart

Hayatu

Wanker

Jsergio

Sometimes there is not somebody to blame always. Arsenal have the best medical team in the sports world, the best facilities and a manager who revolutionised player’s diet and general fitness. They have done everything they can. How some dutch chump can claim to know more than people being the scenes shows what an absolute thundercunt he is. Personally, I blame bad luck.

db10

Thundercunt! Amazing vocab…

db10

learnt a new word.. Thundercunt! Amazing.

Miranda

If it was just this year it had happened you could certainly put it down to bad luck. But it isn’t, is it? I don’t have the stats and links to hand but all the articles I’ve read over the years show unequivocally that this is a long-term problem. We’ve had the worst injury record in the Premiership for a good 15 years. That isn’t luck, it’s a pattern, though what’s behind it – training methods, inadequate warm-ups, returning from injury too soon, too much artificial grass in the pitch, too many games too young (certainly a factor with Wilshere),… Read more »

Eternal Titi Berg Pat Nostalgia

As there is no explanation to the cause of injuries at Arsenal, I sometimes think, maybe Arsenal should scrap the Wenger diet and encourage players to eat food cooked by their moms. WAGs too are on diet and some even anorexic so the guys may not being well-fed; Ok, just for lol.

Le Jim

Just listened to an interview with him on the Talksport website. He sounds like LVG.

Definitely a cunt then.

Ferngunner

There seems to be an upward spiral of dutch cunts in football.

lovely arse

Put him in a cage with Shad and let the fittest survive.

Harsh

good idea, although Shad maybe kindda busy nowadays 😉

Macek

If he was that good at preventing injuries I wonder why no club hires him. Kinda explains itself, doesn’t it?

John C

Obviously i have no idea what happens at training at Arsenal like everybody else but i would be very surprised if Wenger isn’t up to date with his training. He like all bosses seems to regularly go to coaching conferences to keep up to date.

One thing i will say though, and something you don’t necessarily notice on TV but do it the stands is that the Arsenal team often look skinny in comparison to the opposition and that might be a cause to some of the injuries.

VintageFuzz

What I find fascinating is the mettle he has to call AW “backward” when it comes to training. He’s talking about a man who walked into Arsenal’s dressing room and commented that the benches are not optimal for all the players, and had the club adjust their height so that the shorter players could benefit… That train of thought amazes me. I can’t remember where I read that, though (was a while back)…

Harsh

i think it was an interview with David Dein about Wenger published on the Arsenal Website during the time of contract renewal…

Al Gilmore

I am not saying who is right or wrong. But like Wenger I would question what this guy bases his criticism on? If he doesn’t know exactly how we train how can he criticise? I am sure we don’t advertise our methods to all and sundry. Also AW got the club to carry out an assessment as to our injury problems and hired a new fitness trainer off the back of that study. That’s hardly an old man sitting in his cave drawing finger paintings of the mighty sun god to try to solve injury crisis. The notion that AW… Read more »

Anonymous Physicist

Over the past years, it was understandable that people blamed our methods for our appalling injury record. However, this year all injuries except Ramsey’s have been to players who were not playing regularly at the time of injury (you could argue over Walcott, but he had just been rested on the weekend). It’s pretty much unthinkable that we have a fitness system that causes the first eleven to stay healthy while the fringe players get injured. So I’m pretty sure it’s just bad luck, at least this year.

Alphie

He may be right. We are depleted on our right and we don’t have Ian Wright to do a job. I might as well just knock out his skunk mouth with my right.

Campbell must have so much pressure. Feel for him but if this is not the opportunity he seeks to announce himself despite form and other valid reasons (game time . Etc)

These conditions are perfect to jump as 7th to a bit higher up and work from there. This is what football is all about. #COYG

hashtag

At the end of the day Wenger is not a medical professional so is not going to be making the medical decisions. He will receive information from his staff and recommendations and make decisions based on that. I find it hard to believe that a substantial team of medical professionals could all be giving him bad advice, or even that he is given good advice but chooses to act against it (ie. you shouldn’t play Ramsey, but he plays him anyway). Either way attacking Wenger for injuries which are part and parcel of football seems a bit Steward Robson-esque to… Read more »

rex

it’s all down to mourinho and the FA……. evil thundercunts

santori

You can have little complain with Wenger’s team selection for League cup.

He rested Walcott previous game.

Ox has also not featured terribly much until recently and it made sense for him to start to continue to amass the playing time on the pitch.

I did think they should have pulled Theo out immediately following him signalling that something wasn’t right. Instead they kept him on and he had to signal a second time that he could not carry on. NOt sure what the thinking was there.

Gutbukket Deffrolla

Well, I for one shall ignore the chump with the hump. Wenger said “Sometimes you know ideally that you have to rest a player because he has given a lot, but if he has played extremely well in the game before and you have won and the player says he feels perfectly alright, it is difficult to say ‘you don’t play’.” This is his achilles heel. He hired experts to tell him when players who said they felt fine were actually reaching the red zone so that he could then tell those players “Sorry, but you are in need of… Read more »

AnthonyG

Well, you know what they say about suspicions … they are the cousins of assumptions. And assumptions …

Jimbo Jones

Aren’t we joint top of PL? Ozil, Monreal, Bellerin, Cech, Kos, Cazorla and maybe one or two others looking bang in condition and form from where I’m sitting. I think we all get that there’s been a track record of injury problems however it is clear action is being taken – these guys are top in their field but still it might take time and expectation has to realistic – some injuries just cant be avoided. No point in idle speculation and melodrama; you’d think we were down to fielding Vic Akers and his dog from what you’re saying…. If… Read more »

Bigafo

VERY MUCH ON POINT; GOOD COMMENTS!

Paul

10 COYG!

shuey

whether it’s the training methods, medical team, or the players physical constitution, whatever the reason – there is no denying that arsenal lose too many players due to injury every year. and every year at some point are short for players in positions.

and arsenal need to plan their squad depth anticipating those injuries, until they go through a couple years without the string of injuries

Chimichanga Monreal (cuz that's way more fun to say)

I generally agree with your comment but I don’t see how you can plan for losing 6 players in one positions. I think our squad depth is pretty impressive given that Joel was so far down the depth chart and was able to contribute so well.

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