2008-the year of suffering (not for the faint hearted)

[Illusion]

Brilliant guy. I just hope that in a few years time guys like Diaby, Denilson and Walcott can give us fond memories. I would hate to live in the past of players like Henry, Overmars, Bergkamp and Wright forever. Can't be healthy. You don't want to become like those Leeds or, to an extent, Liverpool fans always talking about the past.

There are a few Fabregas videos on there that'll remind you just how good the present is don't worry

 

[MDGoonah41]

I'm late to the party

Best: Cesc at Milan
Runner up: Ade's goal against Liverpool in the CL

Worst: Eduardo
Runner up: Clichy in the same game

Man that Birmingham game sucked.

 

[Illusion]

I'm late to the party

Best: Cesc at Milan
Runner up: Ade's goal against Liverpool in the CL

Worst: Eduardo
Runner up: Clichy in the same game

Man that Birmingham game sucked.

Late maybe but I think you're just about right.

 

[progman07]

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/arsenal-in-2008-stats" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archiv ... 2008-stats</a>

The year 2008 will never be classed as ‘vintage’ by Arsenal fans.

There were highlights – the win in Milan, the recent victory at Chelsea, the three-goal comeback with 10 men at Bolton, the emergence of Theo Walcott, the continuing development of the Carling Cup kids – and the team still play the most attractive style of football in the Premier League.

However Arsène Wenger’s side entered 2008 leading the table yet could not manage to hang on down the stretch. Serious injuries to Eduardo and Tomas Rosicky hardly helped their cause.

They eventually finished four points off the top two. That in itself was a massive improvement on the previous campaign but ultimately a disappointment given the lead they had enjoyed throughout the majority of the season.

Around the same time Arsenal’s Champions League hopes were ended in dramatic and controversial style at Liverpool in the Quarter-Final second leg.

The first part of the 2008/09 campaign has seen Wenger’s side defeated five times in the Premier League and, at the turn of the year, they are fifth in the table. They have also lost Walcott and Cesc Fabregas for a few months. However Arsenal's form is slowly improving and they have secured a berth in the Champions League Knockout Round where they will face Roma at the end of February.

They start 2009 with an FA Cup Third Round tie with Plymouth hoping that the New Year will treat them more kindly.

Am I the only one who is cringing? Yeah, it is Arsenal.com and of course it should be biased towards Arsenal, but to tell these myths this year about our supposedly best-in-the-league football is strange, considering we haven't played well in the league apart from maybe 2 games, nevermind best football in the league...

Again, blaming our problems in injuries (not that we haven't gotten used to it) is a bit childish, considering every other team has injuries as well.

Also, if we are summing up the season, why not mention letting our best performing players of the season go and not sign anyone to replace them?

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Again, blaming our problems in injuries (not that we haven't gotten used to it) is a bit childish, considering every other team has injuries as well.

Yeah, but apart from those we also had Cesc out for two months during the fall, van Persie for more or less the whole season, Sagna missed the last three months and Flamini missed the last eight weeks. I don't like to blame it all on injuries either because we obviously have a too thin squad, but there's still a point in there somewhere. None of the other big clubs have had so many long-term injuries to so crucial players, especially not during so crucial parts of the season.

 

[progman07]

Again, blaming our problems in injuries (not that we haven't gotten used to it) is a bit childish, considering every other team has injuries as well.

Yeah, but apart from those we also had Cesc out for two months during the fall, van Persie for more or less the whole season, Sagna missed the last three months and Flamini missed the last eight weeks. I don't like to blame it all on injuries either because we obviously have a too thin squad, but there's still a point in there somewhere. None of the other big clubs have had so many long-term injuries to so crucial players, especially not during so crucial parts of the season.

Essien, Drogba this season?
Torres is injured but they are still getting the points.
Ronaldo was injured for 2 months this season, too.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Again, blaming our problems in injuries (not that we haven't gotten used to it) is a bit childish, considering every other team has injuries as well.

Yeah, but apart from those we also had Cesc out for two months during the fall, van Persie for more or less the whole season, Sagna missed the last three months and Flamini missed the last eight weeks. I don't like to blame it all on injuries either because we obviously have a too thin squad, but there's still a point in there somewhere. None of the other big clubs have had so many long-term injuries to so crucial players, especially not during so crucial parts of the season.

Essien, Drogba this season?
Torres is injured but they are still getting the points.
Ronaldo was injured for 2 months this season, too.

Drogba is back while Eduardo won't be able to start for at least another month or so. Essien is a blow of course, but not really a bigger one than getting Walcott and Cesc injured for most of the remaining part of the season. The difference being of course that Chelsea could replace him. The Torres situation feels similar to Cesc last fall.

 

[progman07]

Yeah, but apart from those we also had Cesc out for two months during the fall, van Persie for more or less the whole season, Sagna missed the last three months and Flamini missed the last eight weeks. I don't like to blame it all on injuries either because we obviously have a too thin squad, but there's still a point in there somewhere. None of the other big clubs have had so many long-term injuries to so crucial players, especially not during so crucial parts of the season.

Essien, Drogba this season?
Torres is injured but they are still getting the points.
Ronaldo was injured for 2 months this season, too.

Drogba is back while Eduardo won't be able to start for at least another month or so. Essien is a blow of course, but not really a bigger one than getting Walcott and Cesc injured for most of the remaining part of the season. The difference being of course that Chelsea could replace him. The Torres situation feels similar to Cesc last fall.

Okey I get it now we are most unlucky team in the world. We play the best football but we are interrupted by the evil referees, the cruel bad luck of the injuries to such tough players like Nasri, Rosicky and Diaby, and bad pitches, bad weather and the media.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

C'mon. You know that's not what I said. I do think that there's a reason for all the injuries though. We get kicked a lot. Always has been. Even a strongman like Vieira got a taste of it, with knees that started to struggle at the age of 27.

 

[progman07]

C'mon. You know that's not what I said.

Okey but I couldn't resist.

Anyways, we were losing with Cesc and Theo in the team, too, so it isn't like our season is messed up by injuries. Of course last year Eduardo's horror injury played part in messing up our great season, but when you have to play Diaby and Eboue on the wings after just 2 injuries (RvP and Rosicky), questions must be asked why we hadn't had better backups.

by the way, the Cesc injury was inevitable, he had been exposed to the maximum all season, he had to carry a sh1t midfield most of the times, he had to do everything, he played every game. He didn't have time to relax at all, because of our ridiculously weak squad.

edit: to the 2nd part of your post - Ronaldo and co. are also kicked a lot. Messi was kicked a lot by Real Madrid.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

We definitely have a squad that's too thin, yeah. That's why I said I don't fancy to blame it all on injuries. But they do play a part, and it's fair to say that we've been worse off than a lot of competing clubs in that regard. There's rarely a single reason for failure.

Speaking about Cesc he's one of those players that are fit enough to play so much. Lampard (not the first one you normally associate with the word "fit", perhaps ) has a excellent injury record at Chelsea too. He didn't miss a single game for several seasons. Henry was the same. Ultimately everyone gets injured of course, but I don't think it was ineviteable that it would be this bad.

 

[kamikaze80]

C'mon. You know that's not what I said. I do think that there's a reason for all the injuries though. We get kicked a lot. Always has been. Even a strongman like Vieira got a taste of it, with knees that started to struggle at the age of 27.

yea but only eduardo's injury is an impact injury, everything else is muscular, which suggests to me that either the player's physiology cant handle the rigours of the premiership (our medical team's fault for failing to spot that) or there's a problem with our dietary and training regimen.

and yes, it's embarrassing that they claim we play the prettiest football in the league. both manchester teams and chelsea are better to watch than us.

 

[DaGunners]

Chelsea are still as boring as they were under Mourinho for me. And United have been nothing great this season. You may be onto something with City...

 

[Klaus Daimler]

C'mon. You know that's not what I said. I do think that there's a reason for all the injuries though. We get kicked a lot. Always has been. Even a strongman like Vieira got a taste of it, with knees that started to struggle at the age of 27.

yea but only eduardo's injury is an impact injury, everything else is muscular, which suggests to me that either the player's physiology cant handle the rigours of the premiership (our medical team's fault for failing to spot that) or there's a problem with our dietary and training regimen.

... or we're just being kicked a lot. Persistent kicking does exactly that, which reinforces the argument. Take Sagna, for example. He went off against Chelsea for treatment twice before he finally recieved the kick that made him spend the last three months on the sideline. Clichy's been badly treated this year and could easily have had sustained a season-long injury against both Newcastle and Bolton. He was just lucky to escape it. You see the same tendencies in Liverpool this year since they're finally performing. Alonso should have sustained a broken leg twice already (against City and then again against Wigan in the next game), it's a miracle that he's still standing.

 

[outlaw_member]

Every team get's kicked though, it's not like Arsenal get kicked more often than other teams.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Every team get's kicked though, it's not like Arsenal get kicked more often than other teams.

We are getting kicked a lot nonetheless. It's hard to compare exactly how much in respect to other teams, but it's a lot and it's causing a lot of injuries. More so than in the other big english clubs it seems. It's more likely that we're sustaining all those injuries through persistent kicking rather than by having a incompetent physio team.

 

[outlaw_member]

I know that, which is why it is something to be expected. It is imperative that you have a squad to match the rigours of football. If you have a thin squad, than your simply asking for trouble.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

I know that, which is why it is something to be expected. It is imperative that you have a squad to match the rigours of football. If you have a thin squad, than your simply asking for trouble.

That was not the point. I've already said that we're having a too thin squad and that I'm not a fan of blaming it all on injuries. It doesn't negate the fact that injuries, especially on key players, are a seemingly bigger issue for us than for the other big clubs though, and we've never been in a position where we've been able to have the kind of squad players that United and Chelsea has. If you're asking me then, yes, I do think we're getting kicked more than most teams, and I do think it's one of the reasons we've been struggling this whole year.

 

[outlaw_member]

So that's where we disagree than. You feel that we do get kicked more often than teams, whereas I think that we get kicked as often as other teams.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Maybe. I don't think it's the relevant part of the argument in any case. The fact seems to be that we're getting a lot more injuries because of it. Whether it's because we're kicked more or if it's just because we're unfortunate enough to escape injuries less often (something I'm sceptic towards since it happens season after season) is irrelevant in the end. We're still getting the injuries. We would have done better with a larger squad, but there are always players that are more important to the team than others.