- Arnaldo Abrantes will replace Zafar Iqbal at Arsenal as head doctor
- He joins two other Aston Villa doctors making the switch to the Gunners
- Villa have already moved to secure replacements
Arsenal have agreed to appoint Aston Villa’s Arnaldo Abrantes as their new head doctor. He follows two other doctors from Villa to join the Gunners this summer.
The 39-year-old Portuguese medical specialist is a former Olympic sprinter who represented his country at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Before moving to English football with Nottingham Forest in 2020 and subsequently joining Villa as Head of Medical Services in 2023, Abrantes honed his expertise as a sports physician for the Portuguese Athletics Federation and GD Estoril Praia.
According to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Abrantes officially left the Villans at the end of the 2025/26 campaign and will arrive in North London this July.
The appointment follows a backroom shakeup by the Gunners, who chose to part ways with head doctor Zafar Iqbal. Despite securing the Premier League trophy, Arsenal suffered several injuries throughout the season, which seemed to prompt this change.
Ornstein’s reporting confirms that three members of Villa’s medical department have effectively moved to the Emirates. Alongside Abrantes, two other doctors, including Carmen Marquez, completed the same switch to London over recent weeks. Villa are moving to secure their replacements.
Injury track record: A mixed bag
Tasked with modernising the club’s injury prevention under manager Unai Emery, Abrantes delivered highly contrasting outcomes across his two full seasons in the West Midlands.
In the 2024/25 season, Villa excelled by recording the fourth-fewest total days lost to injury across the Premier League, losing 804 total days. This is measured by adding together the number of days every individual player in the squad spends being injured.
In contrast, the subsequent year proved far more taxing. Villa seemed to struggle more under the congested fixture schedule, which caused them to record the third-worst injury record in the league for total days lost.
High-profile casualties regularly disrupted Emery’s squad selections over the last year. Key defensive anchor Boubacar Kamara missed 142 days of competitive football with a severe knee injury. Meanwhile, pivotal stars like Youri Tielemans, John McGinn, and Amadou Onana simultaneously occupied the treatment table during crucial stretches of the campaign.
Perhaps a change to the medical team could do Villa some good, given last season’s injury record. However, they will once again have to contend with a packed fixture schedule.
