We certainly didn’t come away form the break unscathed, injuries to Walcott and Vermaelen were tough blows but we probably come out of the break fairly well and I’ll explain later.

This is the third article in the series and I thought I’d set out a couple of ground rules to make the data a little more transparent and to iron out a few inconsistencies. Thanks to everyone in the comments section for the great feedback.

I want this study to be as comparable as possible and to try to avoid too many value judgements. In the articles so far I have been logging as many of the injury issues as possible in a hope to cover everything and ensure all teams are fairly covered. In reality this has meant that some fit players may have been included in the figures simply because they made the bench after an injury. These players could well be fully fit but the manager has decided not to play them in favour of another in-form player. It is for this reason that I will use the simple rule of players that make the squad will not be included.

Players will now only be included in the weekly lists if they are declared injured and fail to make the squad. Therefore, players not making the squad will only be added to the list if they were declared injured beforehand, either in the club press releases/conferences or if they are injured before kick-off (in training, warm-up etc)

As I have been quite thorough in the previous articles I’ll be able to retro-fit these conditions on the previous figures. I still would like to make a weekly log of the other issues and these are listed in the additional issues section. Readers are free to debate the impact these minor issues have had on performances.

Below are the figures for this week, gameweek 4

Arsenal Vs Bolton

Arsenal (6 injuries)
Goalkeeper – No injuries reported
Defence – Vermaelen
Midfield – Frimpong , Ramsey
Attack – Bendtner, RvP, Walcott

Additional issues: Diaby came off after injury during the game; Nasri, who was previously injured, made the bench but did not play.

West Brom Vs Tottenham

Tottenham (6 injuries)
Goalkeeper – Gomes
Defence – Woodgate, Dawson
Midfield – Bentley, O’Hara,
Attack – Defoe

Additional issues: Crouch, who was reported as a doubt, made the bench and was a second half substitute. Modric suffered an injury during the game and was forced off after 32 minutes.

West Ham Vs Chelsea

Chelsea (2 injuries)

Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported
Defence – Bosingwa
Midfield – Lampard

Additional issues: Kakuta, who was reported as injured, made the bench and came on as a 76th minute substitute. Terry and Ivanovich were also reported as doubtful but were fit enough to start and play most of the game.

Everton Vs Man Utd

Man Utd (4 injuries)
Goalkeeper, attack – No injuries reported
Defence – Ferdinand
Midfield – Hargreaves, Anderson, Carrick

Additional issues: No additional issues reported.

Man City Vs Blackburn

Man City (5 injuries)

Goalkeeper, midfield – No injuries reported
Defence – Boateng, Bridge, Kolarov
Attack – Balotelli, Tchuimeni-Nimely

Additional issues: Richards was earlier reported as a doubt but played the whole game.

Birmingham Vs Liverpool

Liverpool (2 injuries)

Goalkeeper, midfield- No injuries reported
Defence – Aurelio
Attack – Kuyt

Additional issues: Ngog was reported as doubtful and was an unused substitute.

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This week sees Tottenham and Arsenal lead the way in terms of injury numbers, as has been the case over the past few weeks. The fortunes are very mixed as Tottenham look to be struggling with the frequency of games having joined the Champions League this year. On the other hand we look so far to be coping with the injury barrage but it will be interesting next Tuesday in the Carling cup to see the squads and where the priorities lie.

Man Utd’s troubles this week seemed to have been more related to the loss of Rooney than the four injuries listed and Man City do not appear to be missing many key players through injury except maybe at left-back. Chelsea and Liverpool have few injuries but the relative squad depths have been shown up as Chelsea were comfortable winners away at West Ham but Liverpool struggled to create chances at Birmingham.

So, how did we do in the internationals? Here is a list of players injured as a direct result of the recent international break.

Arsenal – Vermaelen & Walcott

Tottenham – Defoe & Dawson

Liverpool – Kuyt

Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea – No injuries reported

The international break looks to have been toughest on Tottenham and Arsenal.

By reports it looks like Tottenham missed Defoe and Liverpool missed Kuyt as both teams struggled to create chances to get a winning goal. So far, the two injuries for us have not been a problem, the squad depth appears to have handled the injury situation so far and hopefully that will continue despite Diaby’s injury.

One positive thing for Arsenal is that we can see now the great efforts Wenger has put into developing a strong, deep squad. In previous years we were criticised for not having the squad depth to cope with a full EPL and Champions League campaign but this season, so far at least, seems to show great depth. To have three of your key attacking players out and still score four goals is really good going. Maybe the 25 rule is actually playing well into our hands as our rivals can’t go out and fill their books with quality, experienced players. Maybe the league will be won based on the quality and number of under-21 players and in that we excel.

One little question I’d like to put is, how do you feel about the injuries in the recent international break? Ok, we lost Walcott for a few weeks and Vermaelen has a short-term knock but are these negatives out-weighed by the positives of Nasri, RvP, Bendtner etc. getting an extra week between games to recover from their injuries?