Why do Arsenal get so many injuries?

Every season Arsenal seem to challenge for the title before falling off around February and finishing fourth or third. Many people say that this is because they cannot handle big games, but most people say it is because of the number of injuries the Gunners pick up. This is true as they have picked up the second most amount of injuries in the premier league since 2007 after Manchester United. This trend has carried on this season with Arsenal racking up 28 injuries after picking up 35 last season. Compare this to Chelsea who won the league last year with only 19 injuries. So why do this injuries happen year in year out for the Gunners?

Most people used to put the blame on Arsenal's injury woes due to opposition players going out to purposefully kick Arsenal off the park in the hope it would put them off their game especially when the Gunners were away. This used to be true with players such as Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo suffering horrendous leg breaks after some hard challenges. This trend does seem to be continuing with 39% of Arsenal's injuries coming away from home compared to the 14% of injuries suffered at home. However the root of the problem is deeper, with referees stamping down on the challenges. Arsenal's leading man on the medical team is Colin Lewin. Lewin has been the head of the medical team since 2008 having been recommended by George Armstrong, and he focuses on sports science techniques. Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sport and physical activity promote health from cellular to whole body perspectives. He runs the pre-season training and then during the Christmas period known as 'the maintenance period.'  The maintenance season requires training over two weeks which is mostly warming downs, stretches and recovery with very little physical work. Towards the end of the maintenance period the club will start to focus on core strength targeting the muscles in the pelvis and torso in the aim to avoid injuries. However this is where one of the problems come into play. Players are not allowed to life weights a two days before the game in case of injuring a core muscle. However Arsene Wenger used to allow William Gallas to do this as he said 'it got him ready for the game,' however this failed as shown by Gallas being in the physio room a lot during his time at Arsenal.

Wenger's training methods are another reason for injuries as he focuses on short but intense training sessions. This can lead to players injuring certain muscles in there body and being out for a few weeks. However this is where the real problem comes in, because in my opinion the managing of the players injuries by Lewin is done poorly. Firstly he fails to judge the true extent on an injury with Alex Oxlade Chamberlaine admitting to lying about feeling ready for the game just to help the team out. Throughout there recovery from injury Lewin keeps up fitness by making them do running in the pool or use the anti-gravity treadmill machine, however this is not the best way to recover from a muscle injury as it aggravates it leading to players like Danny Welbeck being out longer than they should. This is backed up by the fact that 28% of Arsenal's injuries this season are muscle injuries. 
 

The poor managing of the injuries carry on because while he has experience Lewin is not as experienced as other teams physio's. For example up until this season Man United's physio was Tony Sturdwich who has a PHD in sports science which Lewin does not which is why he fails to manage the injuries.  However to sort out this problem Wenger hired American Shad Forysthe as the head of athletic performance enhancement. Forysthe is seen as one of the best football coaches in the world, working with the German national team for ten years and being part of the coaching staff which won the 2014 world cup. However short term this did not solve the problem, as Forysthe made a host of little chances such as getting the substitutes to warm up just before they came on. However the Arsenal players struggled to adapt to the changes leading to more injuries, but towards the end of the season it proved to be working with Arsenal having 25% less injuries then they did in the 2013-14 season. However players who missed the end of last season such as Danny Welbeck and Jack Wilshere have yet to appear this season suffering a number of setbacks which again shows that Lewin is the problem.

Arsenal are starting to show signs off sorting out their injuries with the inclusion of Forysthe but in my opinion until they get in a more qualified man to either replace Lewin or work with him on managing injuries, then they will continue to have a mass number of injuries over the season which will keep damaging their title push every year.