Obviously, the big news around the soccer community is that we’re on the threshold of being in full-blown club season. The Championship and Bundesliga started this weekend, the Eredivisie started a few weeks back, and the English Premier League starts up on Saturday.
The offseason is usually spent bolstering a team’s core weaknesses, so it’s always troubling to see several teams undergo some harsh injuries before the season even gets going. This season, though, there’s one position that seems to be out of commission on several clubs: the centerback.
In fact, no fewer than twelve of the twenty Premier League teams have an injury to a centerback, with five of those teams holding multiple injured players at the position. Birmingham, having just been promoted, will have to play without Giovanny Espinoza, Martin Taylor, and Liam Ridgewell when they take the field this weekend. The Tottenham-Liverpool game will feature two teams missing the core of their central defense, with Ledley King, Michael Dawson, and Jonathan Woodgate missing for Tottenham and Jamie Carragher, Daniel Agger, and Martin Skrtel missing for Liverpool.
A slew of other teams are missing key players. Nemanja Vidic is out for Manchester United’s match against Burnley, who themselves are missing Michael Duff. Wilfred Bouma’s out for Aston Villa, complicating issues along back line made shaky by Martin Laursen’s retirement. Kolo Toure’s expected to return for Manchester City, but that could be hit or miss. Portsmouth’s small squad is missing two central defenders (Linvoy Primus and Hermann Hreiðarsson), while Blackburn’s missing three (Christopher Samba, Ryan Nelsen, and Gaël Givet).
Rounding off the list are Phil Jagielka, who Everton knew they’d be without, Arsenal’s Thomas Vermaelen, and Sunderland’s Nyron Nosworthy. All told, that’s twenty one injured centerbacks in the Premier League at the moment – not the kind of numbers that managers will be happy to see.
