As injuries rack up, the Premier League is becoming a survival of the fittest

The latest round of Premier League action saw an injury-hit Arsenal find a way past Leicester City to keep their title hopes alive, while Liverpool continued to lead the way with a hard-fought win over Wolverhampton Wanderers. Here are four key talking points.

Players pushed to their limit

We all knew this was coming, right?

The fixture load, exacerbated by the European Championship and Copa America in the summer of 2024, has made it an even more physically demanding season and players have been pushed to their limit. One by one, the muscle injuries are all adding up as the season approaches its climax.

Arsenal’s Kai Havertz became the latest victim after

being ruled out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury.

He is the third key member of Mikel Arteta’s squad to suffer a hamstring issue with wingers Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli already sidelined.

North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur have had an injury-riddled season too, while there have already been 10 players with anterior cruciate ligament injuries in this season’s Premier League, the most recent being Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez.

Arteta said the playing load is probably unsustainable unless they find ways to turn players into “monsters that can cope with anything”.

Beyond his suggestion of creating super soldiers Captain America-style, clubs need to find solutions, such as rotating more often or building larger squads capable of fighting on several fronts.

For now, the depleted Gunners trudge on in the title race as they were rescued by

substitute Mikel Merino’s late brace

from an unfamiliar forward role to get the job done against Leicester.

Has City’s Rodri-shaped hole been filled?

While analysing Manchester City’s slump this season, most experts have always circled back to the absence of Ballon d’Or winner Rodri, who suffered

a serious knee injury in September.

Without the midfielder, the Premier League champions have drifted further and further away from the title race, having won only 13 out of 25 league games this season.

But it seems that a €60 million (S$84.3 million) solution has arrived via Porto, as new signing Nico Gonzalez showed he can step into the void after making an impressive debut in

City’s 4-0 thrashing of Newcastle United

on Feb 15.

This was arguably the most convincing performance of City’s campaign. While it was another of City’s January signings, Omar Marmoush, who grabbed the headlines with a hat-trick, Gonzalez’s ability to control the middle of the park is no mean feat as Newcastle have often been superior in that area.

He has restored a sense of balance to City’s play. Perhaps Pep Guardiola summed up his new signing best when he called him “mini Rodri”.

Mitoma proving his worth

If you have not already seen it, I urge you to watch Brighton & Hove Albion’s opening goal in their

3-0 win over Chelsea.

Kaoru Mitoma plucks the ball out of the sky with the deftest of touches before finishing with aplomb from 20 metres.

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher summarised Mitoma’s control of Bart Verbruggen’s punt upfield by branding it “Messi-like”, adding that “the touch is as good as anything we will see in the Premier League this season”.

Brighton came in for some ridicule for not accepting two substantial offers, reportedly around the £61 million (S$103 miilion) mark, from Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr for Mitoma, whom many do not consider world-class.

But the Japanese winger has since gone on to score against Chelsea in consecutive weeks; he also netted in a 2-1 win in the FA Cup.

If the 27-year-old shows more of this kind of form, then Brighton will need to fend off further transfer interest, which might come from the big European clubs next.

The Japan international’s repertoire of skills deserve a bigger platform.

Newcastle getting distracted

The Magpies are just one win away from ending a 70-year trophy drought, but they risk becoming distracted by a fixture that is still almost a month away. Newcastle – whose last major trophy was the 1955 FA Cup – will face Liverpool in the League Cup final on March 16.

Given how close the current crop are to making history, it is easy for Eddie Howe’s charges to lose focus on the present, but in football, form is paramount and right now, Newcastle are struggling to find theirs.

The 4-0 defeat by City was their third loss in their last four league matches. The seventh-placed Magpies will next host third-placed Nottingham Forest, followed by away matches against Liverpool and West Ham United.

There is also an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Brighton before the final. None of them are considered “easy” fixtures for a Magpies side desperate for momentum.

Howe’s men, who will be underdogs at Wembley, are just three points off fourth place and if this dip in form continues, they could suffer a double whammy of being Cup runners-up and losing out on a Champions League spot at the same time.

“If (having one eye on the final) is the case, we’re in trouble,” Howe said. “Because our Premier League season will be over really by the time that final comes around, it can’t be the focus.”