To continue the theme for this season, which feels like a bit of a hangover from last season’s luck, we find ourselves once again asking:

Are we not allowed nice things?

Arsenal confirmed that Martin Odegaard had suffered medial collateral ligament damage on Saturday with his clash of knees in the game against West Ham. It was the third home game in a row he’s been withdrawn before halftime and it will be the third spell on the sidelines this season. We’ve only just hit October.

This is so desperately unlucky – a phrase I feel like we are increasingly having to live with at The Arsenal – and depending on the severity of the injury, the responses to a question I asked on social media last night gave us one of three outcomes:

  • Grade I = mild sprain that could be out for one to three weeks
  • Grade II = partial tear that keeps him out for four to six weeks
  • Grade III = Complete tear that keeps him out for six to 12 weeks.

We’ve seen this record and we know how the music goes. It’s been played for many a year, going back to the Rosicky and Vermaelen days. If we see Odegaard before December it will probably be seen as a minor miracle and yet again we are talking about injuries. Yet again we are ruing our luck and yet again we are going to have to find alternate solutions. I’ll come to that shortly, but Arteta was asked about whether they’ve looked into detail on the injuries and he gave a very good and detailed answer, but in Odegaard’s case it really is such a freak occurrence, that you have to wonder how many ladders he walked under during the summer period:

  • Awkward fall landing on his shoulder at home to Leeds
  • Awkward fall landing on the same shoulder at home to Forest
  • Awkward clash of knees that led to this injury against West Ham

Honestly, if Karma were a thing, when he gets back from this injury he deserves to go injury free for the next five years.

We discussed this on the Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday morning as we talked about the routine win and James rightly pointed out that all teams are suffering right now with injuries. I agree and for sure the ridiculous number of games the players are expected to play has an impact on the frequency of injuries we are seeing, but I still felt that we suffer more than most teams. So I decided to have a quick look. Firstly, the “how many players do you have injured right now?” question. Yep, we’re up there with six, but behind The Scum with seven and Chelsea with nine. Ouch. Although one of Chelsea’s nine is Mudryk, who is banner for doping, we should point out.

That only gives you a snapshot of the ‘now’, so I had a look at TransferMarkt’s Absences and suspensions (which shows players missing or suspended per match week) charts from each of the clubs above, and our rivals. It gave me the following (they show under-21 players too so I haven’t included those players I’ve never heard of):

  • Arsenal = 33 match days missing across the squad
  • Chelsea = 43 match days missed (I’m not counting Sterling for obvious reasons)
  • Liverpool = 16 (not included Bajcetic because the reason he’s not on loan is because he’s injured)
  • Man City = 33 match days missed
  • The Scum = 44 match days missed

So James is right and other clubs – Liverpool aside – appear to be suffering as much, or even more than, we are. It does lead you to think about why these clubs have had to stockpile so many players, but it does underline the quality of the competition if your best players can’t play because they’re being overworked. It’s crazy that I’ve just looked in to five different teams and collectively across 35 matches their squads have missed 169  match days. Something has to change. Odegaard’s injuries may have been freak and unlucky ones, but the overworking of these players has to be dealt with. It is the responsibility of the Premier League, UEFA and FIFA, but none of them will do anything about it because there is money to be had. So we’re going to continue to see players go down injured, we’re going to continue to be ruing missing men and we’re going to continue to be saying “if only we had this guy fit” whenever we watch football matches. And yet our TV subscriptions, season tickets and other costs will keep rising, despite the fact the ‘product’ is suffering with the volume of games.

As for Odegaard, well, when we thought last week that Nwaneri might get frustrated with the lack of game time or not even making the bench against Newcastle, now we find him back in the fold I suspect. Arteta’s default will move towards Eze and Rice in the two eight positions I think, however I suspect we’ll see a lot more of Nwaneri now, as Arteta looks to avoid yet more injury with overplaying of players. Perhaps that means that for some games Nwaneri starts? I’m looking at Brighton in the League Cup, at Burnley away perhaps, or even a game-by-game job share with Eze for Fulham away and Atletico at home? He’s going to have to get more minutes now. Arteta has been very happy to rotate players up until this point in the season and you just get the feeling that he’ll want to continue to do that given the number of knocks we now have. Ethan has proven that he can be valuable and I think so far this season he has been impressive when called upon, so that will add weight to the comfort Arteta will have, but he will have to find a way to get more rotation in the team to avoid any of the muscular injuries that hit us last season. This season so far it’s felt like it has been luck (or lack thereof) that has cost us; there’s been lots of knee injuries and those are impact and not related to things like overuse, so the hope is that we get a bit more luck back as these players start to return.

We go into an international break now and it would be more fun to focus on the fact that we’re top of the league than talking about injuries, so hopefully when I come back tomorrow there are other more fun things to talk about. I’ll catch you then.