You shouldn’t be as long as Jota and Gomez are around - and it seems that young master Bradley is following their example. 
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We had several important players out for quite some time. Allisson for instance. Kelleher had to play quite a lot of games for him during a while. Robertson was out during a few weeks. Gomez and Jota have been out for longer spells. And Elliot, who was flying at the start of the season, injured himself early in. Trent had his problems too (Bradley as well), and we lost several players due to the flu at a point.
Of course, we have been lucky to be able to keep our very best players on the pitch most of times (bar Alli): VVD, McAllister, Salah. They are the spine of the team. The brilliant form and consistent fitness of Gravenberch has played a big role as well to keep things ticking.
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We have also avoided injuries clustering around the same part of the pitch. We were down to our last defender at one point, but we haven’t had to resort to playing people wildly out of position as we have in recent seasons.
The total days of injuries only tells part of the story.
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Yeah it was me, I just dusted down my Imgur account to see if the images are still there, and they are see below!!!
I’m more of a watcher of this board now than a conributer, thats why I stepped down. Was a fun year though that one.
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Yes. They have 54 points from 27 games. We have 67 points from 28.
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Leicester making the cut to be in the elimination bin, that dates it, doesn’t it?
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I am actually shocked that the Spurs number is not that much higher - they seem to have been absolutely hammered by injuries. Might be a matter of distribution in time, and we just notice the cluster.
Brighton’s underperformance this season comes into context. Arsenal, not so much.
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Everyone from Spurs down would be in the Biffa currently. 33 points still available, so Palace on 36 can still hit 69, they would be in the Biffa once we finger Southampton and go to 70.
When I did the Biffa I only put the main challengers on then plus Everton for a laugh.
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Yes, I figured. It has been a while since Leicester would rate inclusion.
This is funny but really the number of injury days is less important than who is injured. Their whole forward line is out at the crunch period of the season. Whereas we’ve had at least 3-4 forwards available for every game. Also grateful that Mo and Virg are indestructible and indefatigable
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Yeah, it’s easy to forget that sometimes given how consistent our results and performances have been.
I’d also argue that to really reflect the challenge injuries posed you’d have to weight days lost by a #1 keeper far more heavily.
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Yeah, it’s an imperfect stat as stats usually are.
One one hand the issues around Alisson should really carry more weight. However how many of those days are just Chiesa?
The real issue around injury’s is how fans seem to think it’s all just dumb luck, as Arsenal seem to think. Yeah, well. You wouldn’t be doing so well if you had our injuries. As if this isn’t, to some degree, within a club’s control.
I’d be inclined to have more sympathy if Arsenal had been playing free-flowing, attacking football since the start of the season and blowing teams away with quick passing and high pressing, etc.
As it is, they’ve been mostly shithousing and relying on shithouse set-piece tactics to try to scrounge out a couple of goals a game and relying on their back 6 to stop the oppo from scoring.
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Don’t jinx it Joey
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It IS bad luck that they’d lose Havertz and Martinelli at a time when Jesus and Saka were already out.
However, HOWEVER, Saka had been struggling with niggles since this time last season largely as a result of them never giving him time to properly recover. They are now very predictably reaping what they sowed with him. Likewise with Jesus. He has had a succession of knee injuries that have affected chunks of pretty much every season since he has been in england. Them being without him a stretch was again entirely predictable (and Im not going to cry for a club missing a player who isnt even reliably picked when fit). Knowing these issues their choice was to go into the season with a 17 year old and some old guy wearing a Raheem Sterling skin suit as back ups. And this in the context of them already serious doubts about the adequacy of the forward line when everyone was fit and available.
Sometimes injury problems are outside of your control. Sometimes they just shine a light on issues your squad already had.
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Absolutely fucking spot on.
Last season we were ravaged by injuries for most of the season while Arsenal seemed to go the whole fucking season with 1 (Timber) long-term injury and virtually no short-term ones.
We still pushed for the title until the end of April, won a cup and got to the Q/F’s of 2 others.
When we totally outplayed Manchester fucking City at Anfield and were robbed of a win by fucking cheats we had 10 (TEN) players missing through injury. There were numerous stretches over the season where we had 6/7/8 players missing from the squad.
I don’t recall too many pundits highlighting this at the time like they are now. And the question remains, why didn’t Arsenal romp away with it?
And that’s before you factor in we were robbed of points against City and Arsenal at Anfield, Spurs, Chelsea and Brighton away. Not a word on that either, just plenty of gaslighting by that fucking bald prick on MNF.
Suppose we’ll just have to get used to another asterisk title if we do go on to win it because that’s the narrative being set. Arsenal’s injuries, everyone else is shit, PSR rules stopping Everton from competing etc etc…
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The asterisk title shit is nothing but cope from bitter oppos. Fuck’m.
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The thing is… even without the injuries… No guarantee that the Arse would have picked up more points than they already have…
In a quiet assured way, we have been relentless this season, and nothing should deflect anything away from that fact. Arteta and the gooner fans, moaning about injuries or otherwise, need to acknowledge the job, AS and the boys have done so far…
If the Arse deem they have been challenging to date, which is fair enough, but have they really…? Being positioned second or third in the table, through stuttering and shit-housing set piece wins, is not actually challenging is it… it just means they are placed second or third in the table…!
Someone has to be there, simple really…
If they were some sort of juggernaut, breathing down our neck at every turn, blasting teams away because they have such a well oiled machine with precision components… then yes, injuries might play a part in disrupting that… but Arteta has a squad of players at his disposal, that cost a lot of money… Most of them his choices. If he decided to fill his shopping trolley with the elite items, instead of walking down the two-for-one bargain aisle… well that is on him, and the club for allowing it…!
Hard to recall, but never did I see, or hear such moaning from our Jurgen about unavailable players, when we were struck down in such a cruel way over the course of a season… He got on with it, we as fans got on with it… It is type of adversity that makes the club stronger as a unit.
I have no sympathy for Arteta or their fans… We will probably go on to win the PL this season, and it should be noted by those in the media, we will not be winning it by default either, nor some asterick footnote that we won because Lady Luck held our hand… given our own circumstances, we have been exceptional. AS 10/10 to date :0)
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They entered this second half of the season, before their injuries started hitting, needing a significant improvement in form to make a title challenge. Remember, this was the period where Chelsea were considered the closest challengers. The injuries might reasonably be viewed as the nail in the coffin that made that late season charge not possible. But it wasnt what put in the position of being so far behind in the first place.
No, that would be the refereeing conspiracy there is against them that caused that 
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