Mikel Arteta reveals key factor behind Arsenal injury crisis after Kai Havertz blow | OneFootball

Gunners boss takes aim at increasingly busy schedule after ‘accident waiting to happen’ leaves him desperately short up front

Havertz tore his hamstring earlier this week during Arsenal’s warm-weather training camp in Dubai. The German is due to undergo surgery in the coming days and will miss the rest of this season.

“We have players who have been injured and who have played 130 games in the last two seasons, so in the end it’s an accident waiting to happen if you continue to load and load,” said Arteta.

“Is it this season, is it the accumulation of that, is it the stress of that, is it luck, is it preparation, is it methodology?

Arsenal kicked off this calendar year with 11 games in 36 days before heading off to Dubai for a mid-season break.

The schedule of two games a week took its toll on the players, with Arteta revealing it limited the amount of time they can train.

“It’s very limited, we train less than ever,” he said. “You see our data, we train less than ever, it’s normal. There’s no time for training.

“But when we talk about training, it’s not only what happens on the grass. The biggest problem is that you don’t train the muscle.

“That’s the problem, so the muscle is undertrained and when you expose the muscle and the tendon to an exposure that they cannot absorb, because the tendon needs 72 hours to recover, so a lot of people talk about what are we doing outside?

“It’s not outside, it’s inside when you have to load that muscle for two, three, six, eight weeks, when you haven’t trained it the risk of injury is much bigger, one because the muscle and tendon are not recovered and then it’s not prepared to absorb the load and the stress you’re going to put it under again every three days. That’s the problem.”