The world’s unluckiest footballer is looking for a new club.
Abou Diaby has been released by Arsenal after ten years, but just 180 games, for the club. The French midfielder spent most of his time at the London club injured, and has managed just 84 minutes of first team action in the past two seasons.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was a big fan of Diaby, who was likened Patrick Vieira in the past, but has decided to cut his losses after a number of injury wrecked seasons for the player.
The 29 year old has infamously suffered an astronomical amount of injuries, detailed in the graph below and here.
There was talk towards the end of last season that Arsenal would offer Diaby a new ‘pay as you play’ contract, but obviously reneged on it as they didn’t want to see poor Abou end up homeless.
Wenger said last November that Diaby’s injury woes stem from a horror challenge in 2006, from Sunderland’s Dan Smith, which broke the Frenchman’s ankle.
“He [Diaby] is a player that I have an enormous amount of respect for. Every time he comes back, he has to start from zero with another injury. He was a victim of competition.”
“A footballer needs his ankle. He was destroyed by a bad tackle at Sunderland six or seven years ago which altered his ankle. He is not a fragile player. He was the victim of an assassin’s tackle that went unpunished.”
Hopefully Diaby can get back playing football at some level after such terrible luck with injuries the past few years.
Here’s arguably his greatest moment as a Gunner.
