Haha, I'm not a fan of Moby Dick myself, it's a tough read... My personal genre favourites are definitely Jules Verne's The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Jack London's The Sea Wolf and Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood.
His ankle injury could have been one of the reasons, I suppose. He played the last matches of the season with torn ligaments, maybe now he needs time to let it heal properly? Otherwise, no idea, he deserves to be in that squad.