Bafetimbi Gomis suffered hamstring injury early in the 1-1 draw with Everton on 11th of April and has been reported to be working hard to return this Monday against Arsenal at the Emirates.

Although being out a month, Gomis is still Swansea’s primary striker and leading goal scorer with eight for the season. He could be replaced by Marvin Emnes or Modou Barrow (recently returned from a loan spell with Nottingham Forest), but both have a total of three goals between them. Nelson Oliveira is currently ruled out with an ankle injury that he suffered last week against Stoke. This leaves the Swan’s skipper, Garry Monk, few attacking options should Gomis not be available.

Hamstring injuries are a particular nuisance with footballers that are running around for 45 minutes at a time. Kieran Gibbs, Yaya Sanogo, Mikel Arteta, Danny Welbeck, Alexis Sanchez, Aaron Ramsey (3 times!), Mathieu Flamini, Gabriel, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and most recently Mathieu Debuchy have all suffered hamstring strains of some sort this season.

The hamstring muscles themselves consist of a triad of muscles (biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus) located behind the thigh that allow your leg to bend at the knee.

Gomis hamstring injury (courtesy iMuscle 2)
Hamstring muscles (courtesy iMuscle 2)

The actual strain itself may be caused from either over-extending or over-compressing at the knee during running, stopping, and starting actions – things footballers do a lot of. They are more likely to happen when proper warmup stretches are not performed before getting on the pitch. They can also be more likely from over training of the quadriceps muscles, making them stronger than the hamstrings behind them.

Hamstring strains require the typical RICE treatments used for most soft-tissue injuries: rest, icing, compression, and elevation. This can be accompanied by light stretching that extend the leg where mild strains are involved, but surgery may be required from severely torn muscles.