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I couldn't hack practising on my own for hours like snooker players

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Morecambe's star defender David Artell on overcoming injuries, Mark Selby and Nicolas Anelka's big challlenge

I've now missed the last five games; three through suspension and the last two through injury. I've had a long standing Achilles injury which gets worse when we play or train on really hard or really soft pitches. So all the recent rain has aggravated my tendonitis so much so that I had to have an injection last Friday in a bid to get me through to the end of the season where we can then try to remedy the problem permanently.

The injection was a long lasting anaesthetic that was inserted between my Achilles tendon and the tendon sheath. It wasn't very pleasant but seems to have rectified the problem for now. The plan is then to have an injection of my own platelets that has had the rest of the blood removed at the end of the season which is the equivalent of having the tendon repaired but you are only unable to exercise for three weeks instead of the usual six with an operation.

It's all very high tech but our club doctor previously worked under Sam Allardyce at Bolton (and wanted him to go to Newcastle) and Big Sam is renowned for having the best backroom staff in the Premier League. The doctor tells me that the platelet rich plasma injection (at the end of the season) replaces an injection which is the platelets from a calf. Its obviously more beneficial to have your own platelets re-injected into you than that of a cow.

So not much to celebrate at the moment as far as I'm concerned, but that's not to say that other footballers up and down the country aren't going overboard with celebrations. The 'in' goal celebration at the minute seems to be the A adopted by Andy Johnson and the like in reference to Fitz Hall's charity for young children. The best celebration in my book was Alan Shearer's when he ran off with his hand in the air. Nobody has a particular goal celebration at Morecambe and nobody practices or rehearses them although there has been a few suggestions but they never seem to come to fruition.

Having been watching the Masters snooker last week, I've been thinking about how it takes a different kind of attitude to practice for hours a day on your own like the top snooker players do. We had a snooker table at our training ground when I played for Mansfield but half an hour of frustratingly trying to pot a ball was enough for me so practising for hours on end seems like torture. It appears to be a different kind of concentration that the snooker players need compared to footballers. Footballers tend to lose their concentration when they get physically tired towards the end of games whereas snooker players need their concentration when they're only at the table and cant possibly get physically tired.

Footballers don't get a five minute break in concentration unlike snooker players when their opponents are compiling a century break. Having said that, Mark Selby, the winner of The Masters, has improved enormously building on the back of his World Championship Final appearance and ran out a comfortable winner. Definitely one to look out for when the World Championship comes around.

Nicolas Anelka has signed for his ninth club and this week has vowed to persuade Didier Drogba to stay at Chelsea. I'm not sure if Anelka's arrival is a passage for Drogba to leave but if Anelka's past record is anything to go by he might leave before Drogba. To have a combined total of transfers of over £87 million before your 29th birthday suggests that Anelka gets tired of clubs rather quickly although he never seems to be on the end of a large amount of bad press for someone nicknamed 'Le Sulk'.

Whatever Anelka's reasons for leaving his previous clubs he has scored goals wherever he has played and I can see him scoring plenty however long he is at Chelsea. I think he will be on the score sheet on Saturday in the FA Cup game at Wigan and Chelsea will be winning at both half time and full time at around (2.4).

David Artell plays for Morecambe FC:

http://www.morecambefc.com/