Darren Burgess, Arsenal’s head of high performance, has been speaking about his decision to join the Gunners this summer, in a rare interview with the media.

Burgess joined the club in July, moving from AFL side Port Adelaide in Australia. In charge of the club’s medical and fitness operations, he also has to co-ordinate a large number of staff members as well as fulfilling numerous other duties.

He regularly declines interviews about his position, turning down six so far since his arrival at the club, choosing to adhere to Arsene Wenger’s preference for minimal media exposure but in the Sunday Mail (Australian publication not the UK one) on December 24th, he talked about joining the Gunners.

During the summer, Burgess was preparing for a long-term stay in Adelaide, looking at a property to buy and discussing the purchase with his accountant. Then Ivan Gazidis rang to sound him out about a move to the Premier League.

At the start of June, after Port Adelaide won a match against Hawthorn, Burgess revealed that Gazidis phoned again, this time saying, “Good win. Now if I can get you to Nice (to meet Wenger and Stan Kroenke) and back to Australia by 9am Monday, would you take the flight?” 

The move was described as ‘one of the more bizarre head-hunting exercises in world sport.’

Burgess spent just 20 hours in France before returning down under. By the time he landed, he had an offer from Gazidis. Even then, Burgess took the offer to his current employer and gave three key men, including the club captain, Travis Boak, veto power over it.

He was worried he was ‘abandoning’ them. Had Boak agreed that he was and said ‘yes’ then Arsenal would have received a ‘no’ from Burgess, showing the depth of the man’s loyalty. Port Adelaide coach, Ken Hinkley, told him to sign the deal on offer from Arsenal. It was, Hinkley said, the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’.

Before Arsenal made their move, Burgess was on the radar of AS Roma in 2014. He explained: “Then, it would have been a bad time to leave the club when we were still putting pieces in place.

“This time, the club was in a good state. That made it easier to leave. Not easy, but easier. I left with Port Adelaide having in place a good staff – great people actually – to keep working a good program.”

Now, the man who had a three-year spell at Liverpool between 2010-2102, is trying to put a similar program in place at Arsenal but with an even bigger remit that includes dealing with player contracts.

English football is completely different to the AFL, and games come every few days especially over the festive period. “[It] Makes me laugh at all the fuss over six-day breaks in the AFL,” said Burgess.

Burgess’ office at Colney contains only one nod to his time with Port Adelaide – a signed yellow Sherrin shirt. His office remains generally uncluttered, a physical manifestation of the man’s self-confessed ‘obsession with keeping the inbox of his email account clear.’

Overall, Arsenal’s head of fitness seems to be doing a good job.

Arsenal currently have only three players on the sidelines – Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud, who will now be out for up to six weeks after his hamstring tear proved to be worse than first feared.

Given Cazorla’s problems predate Burgess’ appointment, including him isn’t really fair.

If the Gunners can keep their injury list to one or two players, they’ll be happy with that and there has certainly been a massive improvement in the numbers of players picking up injuries and the length of time they are spending on the sidelines.

This season, for instance, Arsenal have 95 injury points after 19 games (average 5.0 points per game).

Their previous averages were: