Memphis Depay: Why He Has Been Missing in Action for Atletico Madrid

• Memphis Depay has struggled with injuries this season
• He has played four games for Atletico Madrid this season
• His injury issues are reportedly because of his personal trainer

Memphis Depay has played a total of 139 minutes this season for Atletico Madrid and has missed the last six straight games.

His absence is reportedly due to his personal trainer, who had disagreements with the club.

The Dutchman played in Atletico's first three games of the season, but after that, he played just eight minutes. In total, he has missed nine of their 14 games this season. He has scored twice this season, per Transfermarkt.

Diego Simeone has relied on Antoine Griezmann and Alvaro Morata for goals. The two forwards have scored a total of 18 goals between them so far.

Depay played just 13 games last season for Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. He missed games mainly due to injury.

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Why Depay is missing games

According to Kiko Narvaez, as reported by Football Espana, Depay's personal trainer and Atletico have had a dispute. The reporter also added that the trainer is no longer employed.

The report also states that the trainer thinks Depay's muscle issues have been caused by his explosiveness, while the club felt it was his thigh muscles.

His slow recovery could be attributed to his recovery routine. He reportedly works with his personal trainer in the morning hours and then works with Atletico in the afternoon.

It is unclear when the Dutch international will return, but the good news is that Griezmann and Morata are carrying the goalscoring load.

Griezmann surpasses Suarez La Liga record

With his hat-trick against Celta Vigo on Saturday, October 21, Griezmann now has more La Liga goals than his former Barcelona teammate, Luis Suarez. He now has 181 La Liga goals, while Suarez has 179, as Sports Brief earlier reported.

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Moreover, he now has 165 goals for Atletico and is the third-leading scorer in Atletico history. 119 of those goals have come from La Liga, while 27 came from the Champions League.

Griezmann also scored 40 La Liga goals with Real Sociedad and 22 with Barcelona. He scored his first Atletico goal on September 16, 2014.