Abidal, Lampard, Van Persie, Torres All Out For Matchday 5

The con­ges­tion of inter­na­tional, domes­tic and cup com­pe­ti­tions is begin­ning to show as the injury lists grow longer. Sev­eral top stars will be miss­ing from the Match­day 5 stage. Let’s take a look at how this might impact the results and standings.

Eric Abidal — D — Barcelona
The 30-year-old suf­fered a thigh injury on inter­na­tional duty with France and will miss games against Ath­letic Club Bil­bao at the week­end, Inter­nazionale on Tues­day, and their mas­sive derby with Real Madrid five days later. Barça are third in Group F, a point behind lead­ers Inter­nazionale and trail second-placed FC Rubin Kazan on head-to-head record, mean­ing their title defence would end abruptly if they lost to Inter and the Russ­ian team beat FC Dynamo Kyiv in Kazan on Match­day 5.

Robin Van Per­sie — F — Arse­nal
Van Persie’s story has taken a turn into what at first read seems like a sub­plot from a sci­ence fic­tion or urban fan­tasy novel. After rup­tur­ing ankle lig­a­ments while on inter­na­tional duty for Nether­lands, van Per­sie is report­edly trav­el­ling to Bel­grade to seek treat­ment using a horse’s pla­centa. While sound­ing bizarre there is sci­en­tific evi­dence that the pla­centa is rich in pro­teins and iron as well as a host of other vital nutri­ents.  This might explain why many ani­mals eat the pla­centa after giv­ing birth, a prac­tice called pla­cen­topha­gia. Van Per­sie will miss about six weeks and will not take part in Arsenal’s remain­ing Group H fix­tures against Royal Stan­dard de Liège and Olympia­cos FC, although the Gun­ners now require just a point to book their place in the last 16. Com­pli­cat­ing team selec­tion for Arsene Wenger is the fact that for­ward Nick­las Bendt­ner, a poten­tial replace­ment for Van Per­sie, had a groin oper­a­tion in Ger­many last Tues­day and is expected to be out for three to four weeks.

Frank Lam­pard — M — Chelsea
Lam­pard will miss Chelsea FC’s trip to FC Porto on Novem­ber 25 after being ruled out for three weeks with a torn thigh mus­cle. Chelsea have already secured a first knock­out round berth but vic­tory in Porto would clinch first place in Group D. Lam­pard is also set to miss the Pre­mier League lead­ers’ fix­tures against Wolver­hamp­ton Wan­der­ers FC on Sat­ur­day week and a mas­sive away game to Arse­nal FC on Nov 29th. Chelsea have a deep mid­field and should be able to adjust for Lampard’s loss but the real news will be Chelsea demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion from the Eng­lish FA.

Reports of Lampard’s injury came after a cramped seven-hour plane jour­ney. Many of the Eng­lish play­ers were reported to have com­plained of cramps and mus­cle pain after being forced to take a long-haul flight on a char­ter plane designed for short-haul only. Reports in the press claim that Chelsea will look to recoup Lampard’s £151,000-a-week wages in com­pen­sa­tion from the FA.

Fer­nando Tor­res — F — Liv­er­pool
Tor­res has been plagued with a per­sis­tent groin injury, which he has aggra­vated in recent weeks and he is still strug­gling with his fit­ness. Liverpool’s top scorer has been receiv­ing round the clock treat­ment in a bid to get fit as soon as pos­si­ble. How­ever, this weekend’s game with Man­ches­ter City has come too soon for Tor­res with Liv­er­pool hop­ing he will return in time for the Mersey­side derby with Ever­ton later this month. He remains doubt­ful for Liverpool’s must-win game against Debreceni VSC on Novem­ber 24th. Com­pound­ing Liverpool’s prob­lems, Israeli inter­na­tional Yossi Benay­oun, 29, and 27-year-old Spain winger Riera have both sus­tained torn ham­strings. The ini­tial prog­no­sis was that they would be sit­ting out the trip to Debre­cen and would strug­gle to be fit in time for the ACF Fiorentina home game on Decem­ber 9th. How­ever, both have also vis­ited the same Ser­bian phys­io­ther­a­pist that Van Per­sie will visit. Mar­i­ana Kovace­vic has been cred­ited with accel­er­at­ing recov­ery from injury with the use of pla­centa cells.

No mat­ter what lineup they are able to field, Liv­er­pool must win both rea­main­ing games in order to have a chance of mak­ing the knock­out round. They cur­rently trail second-place Fiorentina by 5 points.

Tagged as: eric abidal, fernando torres, Frank Lampard, robin van persie