Mikel Arteta has acknowledged that Arsenal may change, or even stop, their pre-match warmup routine after the club suffered a fourth injury this season during preparations. The pattern, Arteta said, has forced a review of the ritual that precedes kick-off.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, yeah, big time,\u201d he told reporters when asked if the practice was under scrutiny. \u201cThey were very different. The first one was Willy [Saliba] when he rolled his ankle against Liverpool. Then we had two incidents with Riccy in the warmup in a really similar way. The other one was Bukayo after he rested in midweek, he didn\u2019t play against Kairat, and then against Leeds he gets an injury. Very unusual. Probably happened once or twice in six years I have been here and it happened four times there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo obviously we are looking at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Willy\u2019s one, very difficult to see. Sometimes as well you want to try and test a player before to see if they are ready and the warmup is another opportunity to do it. Bukayo\u2019s is very random because he never gave any symptoms or signals away that this could happen in the warmup. It is what it is, we have to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta admitted the possibility of abandoning the warmup is unsettling. \u201cWhen I am in the office and the moment I hear my door, somebody steps in, I am like No, please because it is a moment that is very tricky.\u201d He added: \u201cTo change that sometimes is tricky,\u201d Arteta warned. \u201cIt is a really good area to have a look. What would happen if we don\u2019t do the warmup? Because then. At half time, we go and sit almost for 15 minutes and then go full gas in the second half. Maybe it is something to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He defended the role warmups have played in mental preparation. \u201cI was a player as well and we like certain routines and that\u2019s the way you tell your body, It is coming, it is coming, it is coming.\u201d Not every player shares that view. \u201cOne part of my job I\u2019ll never learn to love is the pre-match warmup,\u201d Andrea Pirlo wrote in his wonderfully witty autobiography I Think Therefore I Play. \u201cI hate it with every fibre of my being. It actually disgusts me. It\u2019s nothing but masturbation for conditioning coaches, their way of enjoying themselves at the players\u2019 expense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The injury log shows: William Saliba (Liverpool, Aug. 31) missed 3 games (16 days); Riccardo Calafiori (Brighton, Dec. 27) missed 9 games (32 days); Bukayo Saka (Leeds, Jan. 31) missed 3 games (13 days); Riccardo Calafiori (Wigan, Feb. 15) time out TBD. Arteta confirmed Calafiori will be fit for Wednesday\u2019s trip to Molineux and urged the swift return of other players. \u201cWe need some players back and fit and to give us as well not only numbers but different options in relation to the opponents that we have,\u201d the increasingly beleaguered manager fretted. \u201cSo the quicker they are the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club has warned that this run of injuries threatens depth and echoes the 2022\u201323 campaign collapse after William Saliba\u2019s back problem coincided with a points drop behind Manchester City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta may ditch pre-match warmups after four injuries to Arsenal players this season. and routines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[947,826],"class_list":["post-6928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-ankle-injury","tag-bukayo-saka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}