You probably don’t need to be told this but Arsenal have suffered from the most early injuries out of any other Premier League club over the past five seasons.
On average, during the opening stages of the season, Arsenal have 14.2 players out through injury. Behind us we have Newcastle, with 13, as well as Manchester City. Manchester United have 12.4.
While this isn’t exactly a surprise, since, as Arsenal fans, we’re used to pretty much only having Arsene Wenger, Steve Bould and the referee running around on the pitch at some points, it does bring up the question of ‘why is this happening?’
As much as I can acknowledge bad luck, being the most injured team early on on average over five seasons isn’t a coincidence. It’s a pattern.
Is there something with the way we’re training, being overworked on international breaks, pre-season, all of the above? Surely. There has to be something that we’re doing wrong that no one else is.
But, I guess, if the club knew why it was happening, they could theoretically prevent it and if it’s still occurring, you have to consider that perhaps we don’t know how to solve this.