Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has spoken at his weekly news conference ahead of his side’s meeting with Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The Frenchman discussed a number of injury-related topics, after both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott were withdrawn during the week in the 3-0 loss to Sheffield Wednesday due to injury issues.
Arsenal’s current injury list: – Walcott – Oxlade-Chamberlain – Arteta – Ramsey – Ospina – Rosicky – Wilshere – Welbeck
— Read Arsenal (@ReadArsenalFC) October 28, 2015
Both are out for Saturday’s game and until at least after the international break so they are out as well for England. I believe the quickest back will be Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott might be a fraction longer.
We have to analyse every single case and every single exercise and I think you have to not over-analyse when players are injured. When a player is injured, they are injured, this has always happened. We have not too many muscular injuries but it is post-international games when we get all these injuries so is it linked with that? I don’t know.
We have two kind of injuries – the injuries who will be coming back after Christmas, which is Rosicky, Wilshere and Welbeck. [Then] we have the short-term injuries. Most of them like Arteta, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain should be back after the international break.
Wenger then moved on to discuss Dutch fitness coach Raymond Verheijen’s comments made about him, after the Dutchman claimed the Arsenal boss is to blame for all the injury problems at the club.
I trust my medical staff to do well and my coaching staff to do the fitness planning very well. I can only invite you one day to see what work is done behind and we have some players who are more injury prone than others , but we are very well organised on that front.
Finally, the Arsenal boss went on to admit that training methods may need to be altered due to the high injury rate at the club, with some players unable to sustain a full campaign because of the tough time it has on the body.
We have players every year who play 50 games and some who play less games because they are more injury prone.
Sometimes you know ideally that you have to rest a player because he has given a lot, but if he has played extremely well in the game before and you have won and the player says he feels perfectly alright, it is difficult to say ‘you don’t play’.
Arsenal face Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday afternoon and Wenger will have to select his XI carefully, with both Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil expected to go straight back into the side.
