Is Arsene Wenger Ruining Aaron Ramsey’s Career?

Aaron Ramsey has had quite the year to follow up his unbelievable 2013/14 campaign. Several long absences have kept him out of the team for extended periods of time, and that’s effected his run of form, as it’s nearly impossible to keep form when you can’t stay on the pitch.

Ramsey has proven that when he’s in form, he can be one of the best in the world, and it truly is a shame that we can’t seem to get him to regain that form with all the injuries he’s been forced to suffer through. His wonder goal against Galatasaray was the best goal we’ve seen in some time, and easily the best goal he’s ever scored, yet he was cruelly stricken with the same hamstring injury in the same match.

But while we’re on the topic, take another look at that goal, because you can:

Ramsey finds himself with another injury to a familiar spot – his hamstring. When asked if it was a recurrence of the same injury, Arsene Wenger held nothing back, saying “It looks like it.” (ESPNFC) He went on to say “just visually, it didn’t look good. When a guy stops straight away and sits down, that’s not good news.”

It’s not good when Wenger tells you it’s not good.

The question is, how much more of this can we take? Between Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey, it’s just not fair. In fact, it’s so much so not fair that some people are telling Ramsey he needs to skip town and find a new home.

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That someone is former Wales assistant coach Raymond Verheijen.

“There are two solutions. Either Arsenal sort themselves out or Aaron has to go to a club… where training is more balanced,” He said, as reported by BBC Sports. “It’s one or the other. The medical staff can only cure the problem but football coaches cause the problem because they are responsible for football training sessions.”

Verheijen has made his point clear about Premier League managers and how they train their teams. He called Arsenal amateurs and blamed them for Robin van Persie “looking like an old man.” (Telegraph)

Normally, I’d chuckle and brush the Dutch assistant aside. However, it may be time we start giving it some thought. While I think that calling one of the most respected teams in world football “amateurs” proves nothing other than that you, yourself are an amateur, it does stand to reason that Arsenal are incredibly prone to injury.

Could it be Arsenal’s training methods?

When Arsene Wenger brought on Shad Forsythe to be the fitness coach for Arsenal last summer, I raved over how he was the best signing the team made. But he hasn’t been able to stem the tide of injuries. He has been able to quicken recovery times though.

So maybe this training thing is to blame. Arsenal are already without Matheiu Debuchy, Mikel Arteta and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and now Ramsey is set to miss all the way up to and past the Champions League tie against Monaco, and possibly into late March.

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Wenger himself admitted that he made a mistake putting Ramsey in. “It was not the best of decisions” he told Arsenal.com.

That’s not something you want to hear from your manager. It’s not very often that Wenger admits he was wrong.

Arsene Wenger doesn’t change his ways very often, but as it now stands, Santi Cazorla and Per Mertesacker are the only players who’ve been on the team all year who have not been injured. For those of you keeping a head count, that’s two people.

Everyone else has been hurt.

I’m really not one to second-guess Wenger (even though, technically he already second-guessed himself, so I’m in the clear). He could easily earn the title of greatest active manager in the world. I’ve always been an outspoken supporter of him staying at the club. I may disagree with his decisions from time to time (like when he benched Alexis Sanchez because he ‘held up play’) but generally I’ll always concede that Wenger knows best, because he does. But there may be something here. There is no way that this can all be attributed to injury-proneness.

Contact injuries sometimes can’t be avoided, but non-contact injuries, like the one suffered by Ramsey, have to be avoided. Its a sign that he wasn’t fully recovered and wasn’t fit enough to hit the pitch.

“I wanted to be cautious with him” said Wenger on why he didn’t start the dynamic midfielder.

Then why weren’t you?

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