adminLONDON. — Arsenal are the most injury-prone club in the Premier League – with Mesut Ozil’s knee ligament damage the 890th separate injury they have had since 2002. In research that won’t surprise long-suffering Gunners fans, specialist website premierinjuries.com have gone through every pulled muscle and broken leg over the past dozen years and revealed that Arsene Wenger’s men have suffered an injury nearly every five days and 100 more different knocks than their closest “challengers”, Manchester United.
Ozil, a World Cup winner with Germany, has been ruled out for up to 12 weeks with a partial knee ligament tear sustained in Sunday’s 2-0 defeat against Chelsea.
He is one of eight Arsenal players currently unavailable for the first-team alongside Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Debuchy, Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott, Serge Gnabry, Yaya Sanogo, Mikel Arteta and David Ospina.
Laurent Koscielny was on Thursday sent home by France following an injury scare and may also be unavailabe for Arsenal’s game against Hull on October.
Wenger has ordered an investigation into the number of injuries his side have had recently. There was particular bewilderment how influential midfielder Aaron Ramsey could have sustained a hamstring problem after last month’s draw with Spurs having been trained lightly and rested from other games.
The Arsenal manager revealed: ‘We are getting things together, getting a report on all the different opinions – what happened to him, because it’s a real concern.’
Premier League injuries since 2002
Arsenal 891
Manchester United 794
Tottenham 788
Newcastle 777
Everton 666
Chelsea 622
Manchester City 596
Aston Villa 578
Liverpool 553 — Mailonline
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter