Mikel Arteta can’t complain about Arsenal’s injuries - he’s reaped what he’s sowed

This was supposed to be Arsenal’s year. After back-to-back second-placed finishes, the Gunners were being tipped to come out of Manchester City’s shadow and take the crown themselves. Instead, it’s pretty much the same old story: always the bridesmaid, never the bride. The only change this time, it’s a different groom standing at the altar.

There’s every chance that history will look back on the 2024/25 campaign as the defining season of Mikel Arteta’s reign as Arsenal boss. City’s drop-off opened the door for Arsenal, who had positioned themselves as next in line to the throne, to take control of the league and end a two-decade wait for a title.

The ribbons draped on the Premier League trophy at the end of May will at least be red. The crushing part for Arteta and the Arsenal faithful is that it will be over 200 miles away in Merseyside where the title is being celebrated.

Cynics will point towards referee decisions. Critics will look back on Arsenal’s refusal to sign a striker. As for the realists, they’ll blame Arteta’s squad management.

There’s no doubt that Lady Luck hasn’t always been on Arsenal’s side. While the irony of Kai Havertz getting injured while away in Dubai for a spot of warm-weather training isn’t lost, it was certainly an unfortunate way for the German’s season to end.

But even then, Havertz had played the full 90 minutes - in one case, an FA Cup clash against Manchester United, the full 120 minutes - in seven of Arsenal’s previous nine matches. The only two occasions he hadn’t clocked more than 90 minutes during a game were against Dinamo Zagreb (subbed off after 74 minutes) and Girona (subbed on with 20 minutes left). Overall, in the build-up to Havertz’s season-ending injury, he’d played over 750 minutes across the space of 30 days.

It was a similar case for Bukayo Saka, prior to the 23-year-old missing a chunk of the season with a muscular problem of his own. Before his mid-December 2024 injury, Saka featured in 24 of Arsenal’s 26 matches across all competitions, starting all but two of those games. There was even a spot in the starting XI for Saka when Arsenal took on League One Bolton Wanderers in the second round of the League Cup back in September. Fast forward three months, and the winger was getting surgery on a hamstring tear that kept him on the sidelines until April.

Finding the balance between staying competitive across all fronts and keeping a squad of top players, who naturally will want to play every possible minute, is a difficult task for any manager. But it’s not like the warning signs haven’t been there from the past. Rewind to the 2023 run-in when William Saliba’s season was ended in the spring after picking up an injury, having played every single available minute in the Premier League for the north Londoners.

Fast forward two years, and Gabriel has suffered a similar fate. Only centre-back partner Saliba and goalkeeper David Raya have played more minutes across all competitions than the Brazilian defender’s 3,500 this season - another indication of just how little Arteta opts to rotate his troops.

Sometimes, it’s a strategy that works. Virgil van Dijk hasn’t missed a league match for Liverpool this season, playing every minute in the process. But more often than not, it doesn’t, and it feels like once again Arteta has reaped what he’s sowed.