Injuries are Arsenal's story of the season. This situation began in the summer of 2024 when rookie Mikel Merino broke his shoulder in the first training session, and continued into March, with star striker Bukayo Saka absent from the last 13 matches due to a torn hamstring.
In mid-term campaign, Ben White underwent knee surgery, forcing him to miss 15 games. Seven of those games have coincided with Saka's absence, causing manager Mikel Arteta to lose coordination on the right wing.
This has seriously damaged the Gunners' creativity. The pressure is also on Martin Odegaard, who has not been in good form since returning from an ankle injury at the start of the season.
In January 2025, Gabriel Jesus suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament, followed by Kai Havertz in February with a hamstring injury, leaving Arsenal without a true striker. Starting in mid-February, the "Gunners" have played 5 consecutive matches without the "number 9" in the squad.
In fact, Arsenal still have a good defense. Arteta has learned from the 2023-2024 season's failure when he was plagued by William Saliba's injury.
Entering this year's season, the Spanish strategist has enough personnel depth in defense. White will be replaced by Jurrien Timber, while Myles Lewis-Skelly will be fit to start if Riccardo Calafiori is absent. Arteta still has Takehiro Tomiyasu in hand despite the Japanese player being almost absent due to injury.
However, up front, Arsenal have struggled to maintain their form. Without Odegaard in the squad, they lack creativity. With Saka absent, the threat the Gunners have also declined significantly.
Leandro Trossard and teenager Ethan Nwaneri have tried their best to fill the void, in addition to Merino continuously taking on the role of "number 9" to solve the crisis.
That was enough to help them comfortably hold second place after Liverpool, but their hopes of winning the Premier League title had long been lost.
Even before Jesus had his anterior cruciate ligament torn, there was a wave of Arsenal signing a famous centre-forward in January this year.
But apart from the fleeting thought of recruiting Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa, the "Gunners" seem to have ignored this. Ironically, just 2 weeks after the 2025 winter transfer window ended, Havertz suffered a serious injury.
Another option for Arsenal is to call back Fabio Vieira from Porto to ease the creative burden on Odegaard. However, they decided not to do so. Part of the reason was that Vieira did not perform well enough for Porto.
