After Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Everton in Baltimore, Mikel Arteta revealed that several of his players are struggling with injury issues.
While there’s no need to be overly concerned at this point in pre-season, the fact the problems are affecting squad members who struggled for fitness last season does raise eyebrows.
“We had Kieran [Tierney] with a slight problem, we had Emile [Smith Rowe] as well with a muscular niggle, Tomiyasu as well and Ben [White],” said the boss.
“The rest of them are fine, but it’s a matter of days with them.”
On White he added: “He had a niggle in his quad and we had to protect him, but he trained with the squad yesterday, so hopefully he will be alright.”
New signing Fabio Vieira is another on the sidelines. The Portugal under-21 international was spotted in a protective boot a couple of weeks ago and he’s still working his way back to full training.
“He had a slight problem in his bone,” confirmed Arteta. “Hopefully he will start to train in the next week or so.”
Despite some players not being able to take part, Arteta is pleased with the way pre-season training has been going so far. The Gunners started at London Colney, spent time in Germany and then flew to the USA earlier this week.
“The development has been really good,” he told Arsenal.com.
“Honestly, the way they’ve been training has been phenomenal – the best since I’ve been here. The togetherness around the group, the quality that they’ve shown, the intensity in how they train. They are different standards.”
Fantastic is Arteta is very happy, plus a few great players getting over their injuries to make things better still.
Good signs for next season, given we took a big step forward last season (though just missed out).
Let’s be honest, we can’t rely on Tierney and Tomiyasou to last a full season so we need a left back urgently, perhaps someone who can play on the right too and keep AMN at the club too.
Yep, well said.
We got Hector Bellerin at RB. We only need to wrap up Zinchenko and Tielemans and we’re all set for the season.
Think hector is going, in both games so far we’ve played for a time with 3 cb’s. I think that opens a door for ainsley. If both fullbacks are missing this season I could see amn and zinchenko playing along with white gabriel and saliba.
Both our starting fullbacks are getting to injury-prone territory now.
I think one more season of this and both need to be moved on. After many years of watching Ramsey, Wilshere etc I’m so bored of knowing that when a crunch period comes, you can almost guarantee your key players won’t be fit. Wing backs are key players. Funny how Spurs, Liverpool etc always have a fit first eleven whenever we play them in the second half of the season and we’re always handicapped by having at least 3-4 key injuries. We need to be brutal about this. As good as Toni and KT are, as much as it isn’t… Read more »
You can add Partey to that list too
I think the solution is just to get someone else in rather than to get rid of them. Someone who can genuinely challenge them. I’d be happy if we retain Hector or AMN for this season as competition for Tomi, instead of Cedric, and focus on a reliable left back this summer. That seems to be the plan in terms of the Zinchenko move.
However, if our midfield is strong enough Cedric doesn’t become such a necessary outlet and we can make do. He’s not awful, just not good enough if we’re expecting him to regularly influence games.
Agreed. It’s about managing their game time if we know they’re injury prone.
I think all clubs suffer from injuries in key positions but, top level sides have proper competition for places so their injuries aren’t that noticable. E.g. Chilwell gets a season long injury but Alonso has enough quality to replace him.
What is promising – given the Zinchenko news (imminent) – is that we’re shaping up a backline 3/4 that are more flexible than we’ve ever had.
White, Saliba, Zin (WHEN, not if, he comes!), AMN, Viera, can also switch it up as needed.
Still need one more, primarily for KT, I feel…
Bit early to judge Tomi for me but it’s definitely good to see the club making steps to sign a capable left back given KT’s history.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Zinchenko starts the season as first choice left-back. He does pick up quite a few niggles himself though. 20 injures in the past 6 seasons. Not including illness or covid.
We’ll likely kick the can down the road with Cedric for another year though whilst Norton-Cuffy gets another year out on loan.
Unless I missed it, Cedric looked relatively good vs. Everthug.
Cedric gets a bad rap on this site. He is not terrible like some would make out, but was paired often with Tavares, another defensively iffy full back. The combination made both look worse than if they had a more conservative player on the other flank.
Liverpool have had a lot of injuries. They also have a much deeper squad than we do. De Bruyne was not really fit for Man City for several months before he fully recovered from covid. They were forced to make do with various combinations of Gundagan, Foden, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, Gabriel Jesus, etc.
City and ‘make do’ don’t go in the same sentence. Those are all top quality players.
That’s where squad depth comes into picture.
Ruell Walters, 17. That didn’t look like 17 to me. Granted, you could here MA coaching from the touchline, but the composure and awareness are there. Love these sort of surprises!!
Walters was excellent.
I had a slight problem in my bone years ago but thank the lord it didn’t require a protective boot….
Slightly problem in the bone you say ?
Couple of blue pills will sort that right or son.
Oh oh….. here we fucking go