Arsenal need a which doctor?

By Aashish Siwan

Injuries are expected in a contact sport like football but the rate at which Arsenal players seem to suffer injuries has to make you wonder if the club is cursed. The club has world class medical and training facilities available to it and its own complement of medical professionals in the form of team physio (Colin Lewin – 16 years with Arsenal), assistant physio (David Wales – 9 years with Arsenal), fitness coach (Tony Colbert – 12 years with Arsenal), team doc (Gary O’Driscoll – 18 months with Arsenal), masseurs (John Kelly – 8 years with Arsenal) and (Kieran Hunt – 2 years with Arsenal) all of whom would have been kept rather busy in the last few seasons. I think that it is safe to say that this group is vastly experienced and that the players are in capable hands.

It seems that the injuries are becoming more severe as the seasons go on and last season seemed to have been the worst of the lot with the squad decimated to bare bones across almost all departments.

Until this season that is. The new season has barely begun and our injury list has started to lengthen. We already know that Aaron Ramsey is still out and it was welcome news to hear Wenger state on the official site that Ramsey could be back as early as this November. That’s about as positive as it gets after suffering from an injury I have duly coined “The Arsenal don’t like it up em” injury. A mouthful I know, but it could have been worse.

Samir Nasri has just had a knee op that will keep him out for a month, thanks to a Steven Gerrard tackle away at Liverpool. Emmanuel Frimpong will be out for up to nine months with cruciate knee ligaments injuries he suffered in training, which is sad because the young man did well in pre-season. Johan Djourou (hamstring), Denilson (abdominal), Nick Bendtner (groin) are still out.

Let’s hope that we get ample defensive cover in time before injuries bite into the backline and that we don’t have to finish the season with forwards playing defensive roles and if anyone out there knows any good witchdoctors(s) that may just do the trick and free us from this curse.

Injuries to Arsenal players of course is not limited to the physical in nature as some players suffer mental injures (for lack of a better term) as Manuel Almunia seems to from time to time with recent comments about the need to talk about his future if Arsenal buy a new keeper and the Arseblogger sums up Almunia’s situation perfectly.