How do you know tho? I remember wenger saying he didn’t sign luka modric as he thought he was too frail for the PL
You can't ever fully know, you could do all the background checks and digging possible and still get it wrong. But after the season we've had, we would be daft not to try and improve things
Oh I agree we made some massive howlers last season in who we let go and who we brought in I hope they’ve learned their lessons
We just seem to be quite unlucky. Tufan Oscar both been flawless injury wise. Tetteh and Ally both been incredibly unlucky. Albeit the latter touch wood seems to have turned a corner. Management of returning players has to be better too, Rosie took the blame for Ally’s setback, 3 starts in 7 days. I think robustness should really be considering the number of small injuries a player gets. The foreign players we’ve had injured have all been getting long term, which I think is more luck than robustness. Hopefully a better pre season will help us in the long run, but from looking elsewhere this season, injury crisis have been a pretty common thing this season. Schedule’s getting too hectic? Think it’s actually a much deeper issue than robustness these days.
Nothing wrong with players from abroad but I do think there's a theme with Turkey. Everyone we signed from there has had massive injury problems. Tufan, Oscar and Seri have mostly stayed fit and they're the ones who didn't come from Turkey. At a guess it could be because Turkish football just doesn't have the same fitness standards as other countries do. Maybe that's why it's seen as a retirement home for players from European leagues with very few players going in the opposite direction.
Tetteh slid to try intercept the ball and his hamstring blew out. No real pre season for him as he was threw in at the deep end too. Pelkas got clattered and did his knee. Sinik is the only one id genuinely question his physicality for the league
was more for the romance, probs true but if he was fit and mobile even at 32 I reckon he’d be useful off the bench no doubt
Hamstring tears aren't necessarily just luck though. The lack of pre-season almost certainly comes into it and I would hope that in time we can build Tetteh and Allahyar up so they don't keep suffering them. But I suspect there's also just a base level of fitness that is lower in Turkey and so the players we got from there had more catching up to do than everyone else and then the lack of pre-season makes it even worse. Strength and conditioning is a big part of avoiding muscle injuries.
Adama the pick of the bunch but did come injured, If injury free next season will be a fantastic player in this league for us..
Yeah true, a fair few that came hadn’t had pre seasons at all though. And by the sounds of it, Shota did more technical work over fitness, which without the right conditioning would lead to more injuries
Wenger was a massive fan of strength in his players. He head hunted a very good friend of mine, best man at my wedding in fact, who was very shocked to get the call. He was a Rugby League S and C coach, very highly regarded. Wenger was turned on by the German style units, big, strong, often quick. He knew if he could build his talented squad up physically they would dominate other teams in all areas. He wanted to know how Rugby League players were so strong and fit in comparison to other sports. My mate didnt take the job however looking back at the players Wenger signed and worked with you can see he went for the strong types. Always fascinated by stuff like this as it shows you just why some of the managers like Fergie and Wenger did so well. One percenters.
Yeah I was gonna say he did both didn't he? Had that team with Vieira and other bastards in it but then mid-00s onwards he went with little technicians and they became known for lacking a spine and getting bullied by teams like Stoke.
Some people look at me blankly when I say it, so I might be wrong, but I still remember him calling us Stoke in his post match interview after we’d beaten them at home. I think it was his Freudian slip go-to name for ‘lesser’ teams that beat them by getting up ‘em.
