The difference between Niklas Bendtner's and Robin van Persie's injuries is when they happened - Nik for club, Robin for country. The club football vs. international football debate has resurfaced. It will never end as long as there are people who refuse to accept that international football has as much right to exist as does club football. Injuries not withstanding.
Arsenal line up for matches after preparing, training, strategizing, and bonding as a unit. That's what teams do. International or club, the football played is done by a group that trains and plans together. Otherwise it's just a high level pick-up game. That would be the real waste of time. Injuries are never part of the plan. They happen but the better prepared you are the less chance you'll get injured. International friendlies are the nation's means for preparing, experimenting, and fine-tuning.
International friendlies are called useless, needless, disruptive. I can understand the argument but I also reject it because national teams shouldn't be expected to play without preparation. When a player gets injured in a so-called useless friendly, it fuels the argument. It's a free opportunity to state the case against additional matches on a bloated calendar. Today is a day when the anti international football types will shout long and loud.
Businesses are dynamic. They are always evolving and looking for new ways to make a profit. Without matches, there are no profits. Players are commodities exploited for that purpose - even if they get paid well for it. Football is a business - The FA, UEFA, and FIFA are large companies. It's that simple. To blame international football for disrupting the domestic season is useless.
Business is business.
Arsenal is a big club with big ambitions. That's why we have multiple options at all positions. You might argue that the holding midfielder position needs reinforcement but we should have enough strikers to keep us from falling down the table, no?
Should we buy a striker in January?
Maybe!
How many more strikers are you going to buy?
Good question. Especially as we still have Jay Simpson on our books.
Injuries are the problem up front, not depth. And as proven recently by Nik and Theo before him, you can get injured playing for your club as easily as for your country. People need to stop blaming something that isn't going away and shouldn't go away.
At the time of writing, it hadn't yet been determined how long Robin will be sidelined. I've read two to three months. That would mean he returns fresh and raring to to go in late February at the latest. Shame as he's been in the finest form we've seen for a long time.
It's a massive blow for us but I feel we have enough to fill the void.
No comments:
Post a Comment