Chris Coleman has expressed his surprise Aaron Ramsey was in the Arsenal team on the opening weekend of the season to suffer the injury which has ruled him out of Wales’ World Cup opener.
Ramsey played in Arsenal’s 4-3 Premier League defeat to Liverpool on August 14, having only been back in training a fortnight after helping Wales reach the semi-final of Euro 2016.
Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny were allowed extra time to recover after Euro 2016 and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s decision to play Ramsey backfired when the Wales midfielder suffered a hamstring injury to sideline him for a month.
Ramsey will now miss the Moldova game on September 5 and Wales boss Coleman – who had a public spat with Wenger last November when the 25-year-old picked up an injury – said he was taken aback by the situation.
“I think we all expected Aaron to (miss the start of the season), so I don’t know what happened between then and when he ended up on the pitch,” said Coleman.
“Obviously only Arsenal can answer that.
“I think, to a man, if you were looking at that (team-sheet), it was a bit of a surprise he started.
“I think Aaron said himself (in France) that he wasn’t expecting to.
“If you look at his physical stats, they are higher than anybody on the pitch in terms of his high-intensity sprints and the kilometres he covers.
“But he’s still a human being, and it’s not like we were knocked out in the group stage.
“It was a long tournament for Aaron, after a long, hard season. So I don’t know why he was treated differently.”
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