Another injury raises more questions + Ballon D’Or success

Morning.

Mikel Arteta will hold a press conference this afternoon ahead of our EFL Cup tie against Port Vale tomorrow night. I imagine he might be further pressed on Sunday’s game against Man City, but with the dust settled a little bit on that one he’ll have the answers he needs, I’m sure.

Another likely line of questioning is about injuries, after it emerged that Noni Madueke picked up a knee problem on Sunday. I re-watched the last few minutes of the first half, there’s a moment where he runs into the box, gets tackled, and seems to jar his knee a bit. As injury time plays out on our right wing, you can see him holding it a couple of times, and as we now know he was replaced by Bukayo Saka at the break.

He underwent scans yesterday so we’ll wait to see what the prognosis is – as everybody should. Amplifying unsubstantiated rumours about the kind of injury it is isn’t helpful for anyone – even those who get the likes they crave on social media, but then have to delete their posts because it looks like they’ve been putting out incorrect information. From what we understand at this point, it’s not the most serious one, but he could still be missing for a little while. Let’s see what the manager says at his press conference if no further information is made public between then and now.

The bigger issue for Arteta is the loss of another player. On the one hand, we’ve built a big squad to cope with injuries, but on the other we cannot continue to suffer them at the frequency we have already this season. It’s been every single game in the Premier League so far.

August 17th (Man United away): Ben White (knee), Kai Havertz (knee)

August 23rd (Leeds home): Martin Odegaard (shoulder), Bukayo Saka (hamstring)

August 31st (Liverpool away): William Saliba (ankle)

September 13th (Nottingham Forest home): Martin Odegaard (shoulder)

September 21st: (Man City home): Noni Madueke (knee)

I guess you could also point out Viktor Gyokeres probably needed a few stitches in his head after the game in Bilbao, but it wasn’t one that caused any kind of absence. Those things are basically out of anyone’s control anyway, but so far it’s been a litany of problems and it has to be a cause for concern. As we discussed in our recent podcast about injuries and injury prevention, there isn’t a one-size-fits all reason for all of this. Nothing as profoundly stupid and insidious as telling the players to not take Tylenol because that makes them more injury prone, or something.

There are myriad reasons why players get injured, but when it continues to happen with this kind of frequency you can’t help but wonder if there’s something more to it than a run of terrible misfortune. People will continue to ask questions of training methods, the firmness of the pitches, the way we warm-up, the way we warm-down, the boots, all of it, until we go through a period when we’re not losing a player a game. Because ultimately that is unsustainable, regardless of how deep a squad you build.

So, let’s see what the manager has to say later on, but firstly let’s hope whatever issue Madueke has isn’t too serious. He’s been a bright spark so far this season, and while I’d always have Saka ahead of him in my starting XI, he’s a very good option to have at our disposal to help us manage his minutes. It might also open the door for some more playing time for Max Dowman in the weeks ahead, but that’s a silver lining you’d rather not have to look for because it means someone’s injured in the first place.

Elsewhere, congratulations to Arsenal who were named ‘Women’s Club of the Year’ at the Ballon D’Or awards last night, after winning the Champions League back in May. You can see Renee Slegers accept the award and give a really good speech here. At Arseblog, we have invested a lot in our coverage of Arsenal Women, and will continue to do so going forward.

And at the same ceremony Viktor Gyokeres was awarded the Gerd Muller trophy (awarded the most prolific striker), after he got 54 goals in 52 games for Sporting in the 2024-25 campaign. I might write a little about him later in the week, because I think there is an interesting discussion about his very early weeks at Arsenal, but it’d be very useful for him to recapture of some of that form as he settles in and adapts more to the club and the Premier League.

Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning. We’ll bring you all the press conference updates on Arseblog News later, for now have a good one!