Arsenal is now being blamed for the injury that Walcott suffered during the match against Tottenham which was some weeks ago. According to the Dutch coach and fitness expert Raymond Verheijen, the injury that the English player sustained could have been avoided if the preparation he made of his training was properly managed.
“Walcott’s injury is not bad luck; it is the logical consequence of the approach at Arsenal. They made a big gamble. It is Russian roulette with a player’s career. This whole Arsenal medical situation is deja vu. This shows you the low level of injury prevention in England.” Verheijen said.
The fitness expert was referring to the fact that Walcott had a rehabilitation process after suffering from an abdominal injury which kept him out of the playing grounds for 2 months and some months later he sustained the knee injury that will keep him out of the upcoming World Cup.
Walcott returned to the main squad on November 23 and he made 5 appearances coming out from the bench as he made 6 starts for Arsenal in just 21 days as he completed making 90 minutes in all of those matches except for 1 of them.
Verheijen added on saying: “Walcott went from nothing to everything. If you haven’t played for a while you are not totally fit, then, when you play a game you will need more recovery time than normal. A top-fit player recovers from the game after 48 hours. But a player who is not top fit takes 72 hours to recover. So a less fit player is more susceptible to injury’’.
Verheijen stated that the injury from which Walcott is suffering from can almost always be avoided with the main reason why so many players sustain that type of injury is simply because of accumulated fatigue and the amount of matches that Walcott had played after completing a recovery from another injury was just too much for his body to handle.
