Mikel Arteta says Arsenal will “dig in” to their recent injury record to see how they can improve moving forward.
In the first few months of the 2024-25 campaign, Arsenal have been beset by injuries. It is a far cry from the 2023-24 run-in, when Arsenal were able to rely on the vast majority of the squad being consistently available.
“That was a big difference between the end of last season and the previous one: availability,” said Arteta on the eve of Arsenal’s Premier League trip to West Ham.
The squad is in a healthier position now — and the Arsenal manager has explained that the club will interrogate the situation to try and ensure that remains the case.
“We do research not only when we have injuries, but when we don’t,” Arteta said. “Because people tend to look very deep at things when there is a problem. (But) while everything is going very good, dig in there because maybe you are doing things that are actually impacting what has actually happened. We’ve done a lot.”
Arsenal are currently without defenders Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu due to respective knee injuries, while first-team players including Martin Odegaard, Jurrien Timber, Mikel Merino, Riccardo Calafiori and Bukayo Saka have all had spells on the sideline this season.
Arsenal believe that much of the recent injury crisis has been outside of their control.
“It’s true that certainly players obviously come from a position where they have played over 130 games in two seasons, but a lot of things they’ve been impact (injuries) and they’ve been joints, which is not related to muscle injuries and things that you can treat more easily,” Arteta added.
Arteta held his cards close to his chest when it came to Arsenal’s immediate team news. “We have another training session today, we have to see how the boys are today. (There are) a few that weren’t able to train yesterday but hopefully yes today. We will have to wait and see.”
Brazilian centre-half Gabriel came off in midweek with what appeared to be an injury, but Arsenal are hopeful he will be available for the West Ham game.
Arsenal squad looking stronger following injury accumulation
Although Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu remain out, Arsenal’s squad certainly looks healthier than it has for some time.
That could prove vital ahead of a run of games in which Arsenal will be hoping to close the game on leaders Liverpool.
Arsenal are also helped by the schedule — a quirk of the fixture list means they don’t leave London for the remainder of the year. The reduced travel should help Arsenal manage their squad through a hectic period.
(Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
