It seems like a sense of deja vu how this season and the last has panned out so far. Last year we were well into a three team chase for the Premiership title when injuries to key personnel struck us down. Out of nowhere we lost Cesc, Gallas, Vermaelen, Arshavin, Clichy, Song to join the long term absentees RVP, Rosicky, and Walcott as we entered the critical phase of the season. No prizes for remembering what happened next as the team could not compensate for the missing players.
This year, once again we are approaching the final stretch with a chance of regaining the Premiership title and the injury curse seems to be rearing its head again. In recent weeks, we have lost Walcott, Wojciech, Song, Fabregas and now Djourou. Bearing in mind we are already missing Vermaelen and Fabianski, taking the total of key players out to 7. We have seen this year that any team missing its key players will not be able to survive without dropping points. Chelsea’s slump towards the end of 2010 was attributed to the loss of players like Lampard, Drogba and Alex while we have seen that Man United is certainly vulnerable without Ferdinand and Vidic as proven by the Liverpool defeat. The same goes for the Gunners, if we cannot get some of the players back for the final stretch, we might be in serious trouble.
The only positive thing about this season is that we are getting the players back faster than they normally would. RVP was supposed to be out for 6 weeks but he came back in 2, while Cesc’s hamstring should not keep him out for more than 2 weeks. We don’t know when Song and Walcott can be back but let’s hope we can take advantage of the international break and see them back in action for April. That’s the other positive thing this year. We have an international break coming up so that will give the players another week to get well and be ready for the final run in. This year we face a straight fight with Man United for the title so we need all hands on deck to see us through.
Submitted by The Arsenal Kid
