Mikel Arteta says he is concerned about the physical condition of Arsenal’s squad, with a number of high-profile injuries having been sustained in a congested summer.
Arsenal will contest their 12th game in 39 days when they conclude their Premier League campaign against Watford on Sunday and will do so without a number of players. They include Shkodran Mustafi, who hurt a hamstring in the FA Cup semi-final win against Manchester City and will miss next Saturday’s final, and Arteta believes the schedule has played a significant part in the absentee list.
“Mustafi’s injury is related to it because we had to expose our players and we had some really bad injuries in the last few weeks where we lost big, big players: our goalkeeper [Bernd Leno], central defenders and [Gabriel] Martinelli, central midfielders…
“But it is what it is. It’s unprecedented times with Covid, we knew the challenge. It’s our responsibility to put a plan together where we don’t expose them as much but sometimes it’s inevitable, because when you don’t have the numbers they have to keep playing.”
A scarcity of creative resources has also hampered Arteta, although that is largely down to the squad’s lack of balance. Arsenal are 16th in the table of chances created in the top flight – one behind the relegation-threatened Watford – and he knows a vast improvement is required.
“They don’t lie, those stats,” he said. “When you relate that to Arsenal it’s not good enough and there are certain aspects of the games we don’t control as well as we should.
“At the same time, when you are in a process where you need immediate results … for the short-term objectives, you have to find a way to do it. You cannot just shoot yourself in the foot by doing something at certain moments that you are not able to do. We are trying to find this way but the next step in our evolution has to be very much linked to that, to improve that area a lot.”