Champions League: Arsenal in ‘dangerous circle’ with injuries says Mikel Arteta

Mikel Arteta says Arsenal are caught in a “actually harmful circle” with accidents – however denied they’re a results of overtraining.

Arsenal have suffered accidents to various key gamers all through the season and will probably be with out midfielder Declan Rice, defender William Saliba and ahead Leandro Trossard for the match in opposition to Membership Brugge within the league section of the Champions League on Wednesday.

Trossard, who scored within the loss to Aston Villa on the weekend, solely simply returned from damage however was introduced off earlier than the tip of the sport regardless of solely being launched as a second-half substitute.

Arsenal are nonetheless with out ahead Kai Havertz and defenders Gabriel Magalhaes and Cristhian Mosquera, whereas striker Viktor Gyokeres is simply coming back from damage.

The Gunners have additionally made a change to their Champions League squad due to damage, with Gabriel Jesus, who has been out since January after cruciate ligament surgical procedure, changing 15-year-old Max Dowman – who picked up his damage enjoying for Arsenal Below-21s in a pleasant in opposition to Manchester United on Saturday.

However when requested if overtraining was the reason for the issues, Arteta rejected the concept.

“No, as a result of we do not prepare.” Arteta mentioned referring to the brief turnaround between video games at this level within the season earlier than saying his facet educated for “20 minutes” on Tuesday.

“We do not have time to coach. So coaching is just not there however clearly the truth that you might be lacking gamers, you might be loading different gamers extra [as] a consequence. It is a actually harmful circle that one.”

Arsenal additionally needed to cope with long-term accidents to Havertz and Bukayo Saka final season, whereas centre-back Gabriel missed an necessary couple of months on the finish of the final marketing campaign.

And Arteta mentioned that alongside the Arsenal medical staff he was at all times trying on the causes for the accidents they endure.

“A number of the gamers have performed over 150 video games in two seasons so it begins to get overloaded. You begin to ask them time and again and once more to do this [and] in some unspecified time in the future they are going to break down,” he mentioned.

“It is one thing that we’re continually . Now we have performed lots of video games with lots of gamers lacking that places lots of stress after which extra accidents however we’re on it.

“I am actually completely satisfied what we’re doing by way of the medical stuff and every part that we try to carry collectively, however typically as effectively we’d like some issues to go on our facet.”