The Premier League continues to claim casualties to an ongoing injury list that has taken every club hostage throughout the season. Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, John Stones, Rodri, Declan Rice, Mickey Van de Ven, Joao Pedro, Allison Becker, I could go on. The Premier League is having to deal with injuries at a rate that surely seems worse than ever before.
Fixture congestion is an issue, there's no denying that. If you do, well, that denial then plays part to the problem. The list of players injured in the Premier League continues to grow longer and longer, seemingly by the day.
At the top, both City and Arsenal have suffered heavily in the injury department. Their physios are working overtime to make sure they get key names back on the pitch, but making sure it's not a rushed process. Liverpool have had their fair share of key players miss matches as well so far this season, and all of this has certainly opened the gates for other teams to creep up into the race.
The problem is, there aren't any more that will fit their way into that Premier League title race, not in the long run at least. Right now, looking at the table, you see Nottingham Forest ahead of Arsenal, along with Chelsea even above the Gunners. While Chelsea certainly look like they could be a 4th placed team, there's no getting around the fact that they have no place in the Premier League title race.
Upon learning that Rodri, Manchester City's main man, the entire title race seemed to open right up. It's so clearly visible what a difference he makes to both their attack and defense. The defense looks porous, put nicely. Their attack without Kevin De Bruyne has looked largely impotent, and lacking serious creativity while Phil Foden has made a slow start to the season coming back from injury earlier in the year.
This has led Liverpool, a team that can say, at this moment, they've experienced less heartache when it comes to injuries, to take over the table. They currently sit 5 points atop the league with Manchester City staring down two straight defeats in the Premier League, and 4 straight losses in all competitions.
Arsenal, who have had key playmaker Martin Odegard out for several weeks now, are also limping a bit of late in the league. Recent results have them dropping points to Bournemouth ( who also managed to take all 3 points against City), Newcastle United, and title rivals Liverpool.
Without their star midfielder, and others including Declan Rice, and Ricardo Calafiori, Arsenal has fallen much farther from the top of the mountain than they'd like to admit. A number of those players have since returned, but with all that has happened around the league, I'm not sure this will be as damning as it may have been in years past.
With all the injuries going around the league, and at the top of the tree, this is shaping up to be a title race that sees a winner with far less points than in years past. It will not be a year of 95+ points to win a title, but more likely in the low to mid 80s, and could come down to the sheer health of