By Boris Mellor
November 8 2010

Is Fabregas's injury really a mystery? I noticed that at the second half kick-off of the Newcastle game that  he was looking miserable and rubbing his thighs.He had such a poor performance I couldn’t help wondering how bad his injury was. This is what the Gaffer had to say after the Newcastle match: “Cesc I think still played a little bit restricted today. He has no real pain but is still a bit affected I feel.”

However, when I checked the Captain notes in the Newcastle match programme Fabregas seemed to tell a different story, and he was not as sanguine as Wenger. I will quote his comments directly and leave it to the reader to judge the issue for themselves.

“From the 10^th minute against West Ham I was feeling it, in my head and my body I couldn’t do anything. Every time I had the ball and had players behind me, I couldn’t really do anything, and I was losing many balls. I couldn’t finish the shot properly when Bac set me up --------------- in the second-half I came back a bit more. I had strapping at half-time and that made it a bit better. In the last minute of the game I made one sprint of 100 metres. It was painful, but at least I was able to do it.”

That was a week ago, what about the injury now?

He goes on to say:

“The good news is that there is no tear there on the hamstring, nothing, it’s just a little bit of fluid but it keeps coming back. It’s outside the ‘skin’ of the muscle. It’s not really a muscle injury, it fluid that keeps coming back and it’s very annoying.

We are working on it, looking at my hips because they are always tight. We have to work on it but also understand that I am 23 years old and I’ve played many many games”.

I am not a medical expert, and can’t really evaluate the importance of the fluid, but no smoke without fire comes to mind. Fluid seepage in legs is usually indicative of at least small tendon or muscle tears. Apparently the medico’s say not, but should Arsenal risk playing what is clearly an unfit Fabregas?

So is it such a mystery? The guy is clearly playing through an injury.