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Fitness coach Raymond Verheijen has blasted Arsene Wenger's fitness work, saying that Arsenal's "incompetent" training methods are to blame for the club's seemingly annual injury crises.

Verheijen, a fitness and conditioning expert who was assistant manager of Wales, has accused the Gunners boss of training his players "like marines" and being out-of-date.

Nine first-team players are currently listed as injured on PhysioRoom.com, the highest of any side in the Premier League, and a quick search of seasons past shows that these worrying spates are nothing new.

But despite pundits and fans alike labelling these injuries as unlucky, the Dutchman claims that the North London club are no coincidence, and boil down to incompetence:

"An injury could be bad luck but that is the exception to the rule. In contact sports occasionally there is an unlucky injury but most injuries are a result of overloading the body... doing the wrong workload at the wrong time or in the wrong sequence," he explained.

(Image: PA)

"Clearly something is going wrong. If you look at the law of the big numbers, something in the last ten years is going wrong. It’s clearly incompetence but it’s unconscious incompetence. The only way you can improve is if it’s conscious incompetence, so you’re aware of it.

"Then you can act. If you are in denial, you are blaming the outside world for the injuries and not looking in the mirror then you will stay incompetent.

"If it happens occasionally then this is a gut feeling. If it happens regularly, over 10-12 years, then coincidence is out of the question."

Fifty-year-old Verheijen has worked with many leading players during his career, and one Premier League star has recently contracted him on a private basis to work on his fitness. But for many, he claims, the damage is done before the season even starts.

He added: "The problem is with the way they train in general, but especially in pre-season.

"Over the years I’ve spoken with many Arsenal players and in certain periods of pre-seasons, they are trained as if they are in the Marines, rather than playing in the Premier League."

This is not necessarily a bad thing, according to Verheijen, as it can quickly get players back up to speed as well as providing a boost in the near future. But in preparing for a possible 60-game season the foundations must be laid with the whole campaign in mind.

"When you [train like a marine], first of all you develop short-term fitness. If you do it gradually then you’ll build-up long-term fitness for nine-10 months.

"If you get fit really quickly then you develop shorter-term fitness that only last around 3-4 months.

"This is the traditional way of training, that players are hammered in preseason, and this is obviously an issue at Arsenal but they are not alone - our

."

Having previously described David Moyes as a "dinosaur" for his training methods, the outspoken Verheijen is not afraid of criticising top clubs where they are failing their players.

(Image: Matthew Peters / Getty)

And with poor conditioning to blame for the majority of injuries, the Dutch coach explains why Arsenal's pre-season routine is seeing the queue for the treatment room grow longer.

"By training so much in a short period of time you accumulate fatigue.

"When you get fatigue your nervous system becomes slower and that affects your coordination and the control over your body while you’re doing maximum explosive activities .

"

, he was out for a long period. They brought him back really well [in November]; he played 25 minutes, then 25 minutes then 45 minutes - so phase 1 of that rehab is building up match fitness - they gradually built up the game minutes and they did that really well.

"But Arsenal play two games a week, not one. This has nothing to do with match fitness but that you only have three days to recover not six days and you don’t have the recovery time.

(Image: Getty)

"They played Theo five times in 16 days (90 mins) so instead of edging him in, they played him 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, so you accumulate fatigue, your nervous system becomes slower and fatigue is one of the biggest reasons for ACL injuries.

"ACL injuries often happen without the fault of an opponent, often it happens with an innocent movement you’ve made a million times in your career. If he plays five times in 16 days, the nervous system becomes slower and his muscles around his knee are slower to contract, destabilising the knee.

"If the signal arrives a fraction of a second late then you are starting the movement with an unprotected knee, so you get injured. it’s one of the main reasons why ACL injuries happen, the signal gets to the knee too slowly and the ligament ruptures or snaps."

Despite having a huge amount of respect for Wenger and his foresight with regards to Financial Fair Play (FFP), Verheijen argues that the Frenchman's methods have become somewhat outdated.

"When Arsene Wenger came to Britain in them mid-90s his training methods were revolutionary. The fact that his training methods were seen as revolutionary say something about him, but more about the training methods in England at the time. He was a forward-thinking coach, but the problem with revolutionary people is that they’re only revolutionary once in their life, so twenty years on they become average. And then they become prehistoric.

(Image: Getty)

"Truly revolutionary coaches keep changing and they keep the edge. Others do it once and then they keep things the same, they lose their edge.

"From another perspective, he deserves a lot of credit. I have al to of respect for Wenger if you look at how he dealt with the finances of the club. He was one of the few managers who implemented FFP before there was FFP. He is an idealist and I admire that in him. From an overall perspective, he deserves a lot of credit.

"I said two or three years ago that because of this policy the club was at a disadvantage because of this lack of spending, but Arsene Wenger was being proactive and saw FFP would arrive. Now it is here, Arsenal are ready for it and that’s why I’m not surprised that they’re doing well - second in the league and in the semis of the fa cup - it’s a feeling I had a few years ago.

"While everyone else is cutting costs, Arsenal are ready for it and they have momentum. Within that context, the training methods could destroy this golden opportunity for them. It’s self-destruction."