Mikel Arteta opens up on the difficulty of protecting players from injury following Gabriel blow | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta has opened up on the difficulty of protecting players while also managing their desire to play, following Gabriel’s season-ending injury.

It comes after the 27-year-old was ruled out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury picked up in the win over Fulham, which will require surgery.

Arteta explained how he protected the player earlier this season when he was struggling with a separate hamstring issue, comparing it to more recent times when Gabriel had no fitness concerns but still suffered a serious injury.

“For example with Gabriel, during the West Ham game (in November) he felt something in his hamstring,” Arteta explained.

“Three days after (West Ham), he said he was ready to play with a Grade 1B tear. He said ‘I can’t feel anything, I want to play’.

“It was a massive fight not to play him. The game on day six, he said ‘I definitely have to play this one’. Everybody told him there was still a chance of a risk if he played. We decided after a big fight not to play him. Day nine, another game.

“This one he said ‘for sure I have to play’. The doctors said there is a slight risk. He could miss five, six, seven weeks if he gets injured. We decided not to play him. On day 12, he played. But I was really tempted to play him on day six.

“If I did play him and he picked up the injury he has now, and he misses four months, I would be hammered. So sometimes you protect the player, and even if they are protected they can get injured. There is an element that we cannot control.”

Gabriel’s injury is one of several hamstring injuries his players have suffered this season and Arteta believes bigger squads could be a solution.

“Logically if we demand the players to play more games, in more competitions, with more travel, at more intensity, the only solution is more players,” he said. “I don’t see any other solution.

“Some players are going to start the season after having surgery. And that is always a big question mark. And we have a few of those players, and that brings uncertainty. Because you don’t know how capable the players are going to be to sustain congested periods. So that’s something we are very busy with.

“This has been building for a while. During the summer there are always competitions or the African Cup. We are having new competitions coming up this summer. This is all adding up. The intensity, the quality, the pressure, everything is increasing…. We have to be conscious there are certain limits.”