Are we being adversely punished or something, as Arsenal fans, eh?

Last season we had plenty of people chirping that we’d barely had any injuries. But we were missing Thomas Partey for two-thirds of the season, Gabriel Jesus was out for big chunks, Zinchenko was missing a few times too. Smith Rowe missed seven Premier League games and Fabio Vieira was also out over the winter period. I haven’t even missed ‘Like A New Signing’ Timber, so last season, even with all of that chirping from rival fans, we had our fair share of absentees.

Yet this season it feels like already it has been taken up a notch, with news emerging that Tomiyasu has suffered a set back in his recovery and will be missing for the trip to Bournemouth on Saturday. If true – and when so many outlets report the same thing there’s usually no smoke without fire – then it’ll be another blow for the Japanese international and a big one for us too. We all love Tomi; he came in at right back and was an instant hit before Ben White secured the role. I remember when we signed him on deadline day; I was in Portugal in a hotel with The Management and she was asking if I wanted to go to the bar – as the deal happened I just stood in front of the TV watching the yellow Sky Sports ticker thinking “that’s excellent cover for us – very happy” whilst the wife stood in the doorway saying “Well?? you coming or what??”.

I did look on TransferMarkt the next day on his injury history and thinking “hmm…that doesn’t look  great” at the time. We’d all got used to the persistent problems that Tierney had when he was playing from Celtic at a young age and Tomiyasu had missed ten games in 19/20 plus ten games in 2021/22. He signed for us as a 22-year old who had already picked up a few injuries as a young age, but you hope that he would get over that when playing for us. And at first he was fine, playing from September until February without any problems.

But then he picked up that calf injury and it’s been pretty patchy ever since. He was out for 60 days and 11 matches and returned for the end of the season. The following season for us it was 119 days and 20 matches, then last season it was 71 days and 13 matches. He’s already missed 10 games for us in 86 days since the injury was reported in July and at this point I think most of us are just a bit sad that a very talented player doesn’t look like he’s going to shake off his injury proneness to become a regular feature at the club.

It’s frustrating for all involved, because with Liverpool on the horizon I’m sure you, like me, knows the good job he did a couple of season’s ago to keep Salah quiet. When Salah has been up against Zinchenko in recent years he’s pretty much had the better of him, but Tomiyasu loves a duel and is a good one-on-one defender, so I bet if he was fully fit Arteta would be considering him to play in that game for sure. But if this ‘setback’ is proven to be true (and we have no other reason to think not), then I think it might end up being one too many injuries for Tomiyasu to be considered a longer-term viable option.

You can totally understand why the club did the contract deal they did in March this year because whilst he was fit and contributing to the team at the time, you can’t ignore these injury problems, so that adding on of an additional year to take it to 2026 means that Arsenal were protecting value of a good player rather than of showing that they wanted him here for a very long time. And that might prove to be sensible. IF he continues to have problems this season then I think it will be highly likely the club look to move him on. We signed him for around £19million and next summer with one year left on his contract, I suspect Arsenal would probably look at recouping about half that at best. It would represent an affordable deal for an Italian club (a few have been linked) and it would also ensure that Arsenal move on from him – which of course would be a shame but you can’t keep around a player who is perennially injured for big chunks of the season.

If you think about it, we sort of already have moved on from Tomiyasu, because in the full back slots there’s White, Timber and Calafiori. Zinchenko is due to return and that’s a rotation option, then we have Kiwior as well. IN the summer we were wondering how you’re going to give minutes to all of these players but you only have to look at the injury proneness of Zinchenko and Tomiyasu to see that Kiwior could be making appearances in some of those league cup and early FA Cup games (draw dependent) for sure. Then we also have Lewis-Skelly who has impressed and you start to think that Arteta is probably going to start to look at fast-tracking him a little more at this rate, if Tomi continues to suffer at the hands of his own body.

It feels a little cold to be talking like this for a player with whom Arteta loves, the club clearly have affection for, as does his team mates, as well as all of us fans. But we’ve sat through year’s of contract extensions for the likes of Abou Diaby and I think most of us are a bit more battle-hardened because of it. Which is why if we’re all honest with ourselves, we need to accept that this won’t happen for the Japanese international and unfortunately, we have to just think of him as a ‘nice to have’ and not somebody we can call on with any regularity this season.

I think I’ll call it a day at that. I was going to talk about Martinelli potentially being out with a calf problem, but I don’t think I’m minded to talk about that after 1000 word lamenting the potential absence of yet another player. So I’ll take my leave from here for another day and I will catch you wonderful people tomorrow.

Enjoy your Tuesday.