Arsene Wenger has been blasted for his backwards approach to player health by fitness expert Raymond Verheijen.
Arsenal have been engulfed by another injury crisis just as they had drawn level with league leaders Manchester City. Both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott picked up muscular injuries in a 3-0 League Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday. The latter’s injury came little over 10 minutes after he replaced Oxlade-Chamberlain and it appeared Walcott had been rushed through his warm-up.
The two England attackers join an extensive list of absentees, including Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck, leaving only five fit midfielders for upcoming matches against Swansea, Bayern Munich and Tottenham.
Verheijen believes the responsibility for that lies firmly with the “dinosaur” Wenger, whose methods have become outdated during his 19 years at Arsenal. In a series of tweets the former Wales and Barcelona coach warned that there was a pattern developing in the club’s regular absences.
Every injured Arsenal player
“Here we go again,” he wrote. “Ramsey, Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain out injured. I lost count. Has this pattern repeated itself [for] five or six seasons already.
“Ramsey, Walcott, Wilshere, Oxlade-Chamberlain (and [Bacary] Sagna, [Robin] van Persie, [Cesc] Fabregas) have been injured for months each season.
“How many times do patterns like this have to repeat themselves before the football world will wake up and stop denying these clear facts?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">In the new book 'How Simple Can It Be?' it is extensively described how 'le professeur' Wenger became 'le dino'. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://t.co/YvnL2FZ6YQ" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3101871-https://t.co/YvnL2FZ6YQ" data-vars-event-id="c23">pic.twitter.com/YvnL2FZ6YQ</a> — Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/raymondverheije/status/659324732928610305" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3101871-https://twitter.com/raymondverheije/status/659324732928610305" data-vars-event-id="c23">October 28, 2015</a>
The Dutch coach warned that Ramsey in particular was developing a career-threatening hamstring injury. The Welsh midfielder has had five separate absences caused by thigh and hamstring since December 2013 and Verheijen believes Wenger’s methods are now too out of date to help.
Wenger had completely reinvented English football’s approach to diet and nutrition upon his arrival at Highbury but his critic believes he is now behind other coaches.
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“The problem with revolutionary coaches is they are only revolutionary once and apply this ‘revolutionary’ approach during their entire career.
“Applying the same ‘revolutionary’ approach an entire career means after 10 years the coach has been average and after 20 years he’s behind.”
Arsenal are set to be without eight players for Saturday’s visit to Swansea City, with Wenger facing the choice of giving a youngster such as Alex Iwobi a Premier League debut or playing full-backs Kieran Gibbs or Hector Bellerin out of position.
