Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud will likely miss the first game of the new Premier League campaign after being ruled out of the final pre-season friendly against Cologne two weeks in advance.
The absence of the new strike pair, in addition to the impending sale of Nicklas Bendtner, Ju-Young Park and Robin van Persie (probably), means the boss will have only Marouane Chamakh and Benik Afobe as recognised attackers to choose from when Sunderland visit the Emirates on August 18.
“Podolski and Giroud may take longer than expected. I cannot play them in pre-season, so I will ease them in the Premier League,” confirmed Wenger after Sunday’s draw with Kitchee FC in Hong Kong.
Adding to the fitness frustrations in the camp, the boss again discussed the absence of Tomas Rosicky while also hinting that other squad members could well be short.
“Rosicky did fantastically well for us at the end of the season, so it is a big blow. The injury he has got comes from the European Championships.
“The players who were out here will have had enough games but some players will have only one game.
“I decided to have one game behind closed doors to try and get a good opponent but at the moment it will be behind closed doors against ourselves.
“I have organised a training camp in Germany ahead of the Cologne game. It is a little bit unusual for us.”
Having promised to learn from the mistakes of last summer, you can’t help but think that Arsenal have created new ones for themselves. The tour of Asia has rightly been hailed a success, but failing to organise a fixture to replace the bodge-job in Nigeria looks like it could prove costly. Let’s hope it isn’t…
Well Fuq
I’ll choose to interpret this as AW’s own “pre-season” warm-up, rehearsing and polishing up his mind games for the season and he would “spring a surprise” on Sunderland by having at least one if not both available come 18 Aug.
The only mind game Arsene play is with fantasist like you for the last 7 years of promising judge me in errrr May lol. To be fair to the man he didn’t say which year!!!!. Our only signing for the summer was going to be Podolski. Then, Arsene and his puppet Ivan sensed the RVP was not going to stay, so Giroud was signed as a cheap replacement (he could turn out to be good, for sure no one could turn out worse than the useless sheesha smoker). READ MY LIPS, the Con man will sign no one, he lost… Read more »
Cynical Cygan – You’re on to something noting that Wenger is offensively absorbed in his idealist bullshit, but haven’t you noticed a bit of a switch from last campaign? I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who almost broke their neck from a ferocious double-take after reading Wenger’s comments on Cazorla. “We are still working that out”. What? When in the last two years has he been so forward?
Alex, a con man always change his tactics, but the results always the same, he cons you. Now watch and see first of Sep to come and the con man will come with his, we paid to sign bla bla bla but couldn’t and now Jan will come and we will for sure sign.
Sadly the fantasist keeps buying his BS and think this year will be difference.
Um no worries, we’l just move squillaci to the CF role and allow wenger to point out which goal he is to put the ball in.
Um no worries, we’l just move squillaci to the CF role and allow wenger to point out which goal he is to put the ball in.
Sorry had to repeat that one. Some funny.shit right there….haha.
Good one wale.
I’m smiling too gary, i’m smiling too.
Right……..
Beyond ridiculousness.
To be fair, as Arseblogger rightly mentioned in his column today, organizing ticketing, security and additional logistics for a fixture at such short-notice is tough. Hopefully a behind-closed-doors match proves salutary enough.
At least we know have some sedentary time in Germany to just focus and train. No more globetrotting.
actually its not – its done in the music biz at this size, all the time – you don’t think that if they were to release 10-20 quid tickets a week in advance it would work? The problem is that other teams (of quality) already have a full pre-season schedule and wouldn’t want to do the Arsenal any favours. But he could use his french connections….
I think the police would have something to say about it at such short notice. Not saying they’d necessarily forbid it, but they would have to be talked to before anything could be arranged. Plenty of other interested parties would need to know in advance too, I should think. It’s not just a case of open the gates and they will come.
How has this happened? Neither of them had a particularly gruelling Euro campaign
Off to buy a decorder. Seems we’re gonna need it.( wenger talk)
yeah but they’ve both come from different clubs. maybe the fitness levels at Cologne and Montpelier aren’t up to Arsenal standards?
Unless podolski injures himself while enjoying the malta drink and giroud clips his balls while shaving, we need not worry, i’m sure they will play. The two arsenal signings will play.
Just tactical talk by wenger.
Precisely what I was thinking! Walcott and Ox both played in Euro and they’ve played on the Asia tour. If anything the two new boys should’ve traveled with the team to get to know their new teammates and at least train with them to get the team chemistry going.
It’s called a webber. Ullsgit smokescreen. They’ll both be there on day one.
Holy shit!! Edit button please bloggs. That was meant to read : its a wenger bullshit smokescreen.
Man I suck.
I preferred the Webber. Ullsgit smokescreen. It sounds like something Wenger could say after reading it somewhere and we can now start saying that it’s just a WUS
Arsenal’s medical department strikes again.
dafuq is wrong with people here.chill out there is still a month.now get cazorla in first.
dont use “dafuq” …..never use “dafuq”
Yep, no text speak please.
sorry boss.i mean blogs.
“What the fuck” is cool thou
“Thou” is not cool though.
Unless thou art Shakespeare.
“Unless thou art Shakespeare.” quoth Tenacious Defence, who hast outwitted thee prithily.
Superficially an appealing premise but on closer inspection doesn’t really hold water. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that Arsenal’s physios and doctors are less competent or qualified than anyone other club’s, and indeed, all reports are that Arsenal’s staff are very well respected. If the medical team were the problem, it’s not like Arsenal couldn’t afford to switch to new people or develop better facilities. It smacks of an oversimplistic explanation in a case where we simply don’t have enough information. “Oh, we’re having lots of injuries, therefore our medical staff are a bunch of incompetent loonies with certificates… Read more »
Also, it’s probably worth noting that in this particular case, Wenger did not say that Giroud and Podolski had been injured, and it’s not even implied that they’re injured. Probably more a matter of getting them up-to-scratch with the intensity demanded at a club like Arsenal and in a league like the EPL. Again, not something that the medical team is at fault for.
There’s only one term to describe this – “absolutely fucking ridiculous”. Podolski only played the full 90 minutes for, I think, one match in the Euros and Giroud’s appearances were all substitute.
How the fuck are they not fit? Now we have to go into the start of the season with playing a striker who can’t score goals.
Walcott may start up front. I imagine you’re still not brimming with confidence. I can’t blame ya.
Walcott’s contract situation springs to mind.
Otherwise I’d be happy enough with that.
It’s also worth noting that even in the meaningless pre-season game against City, Wenger went with Gervinho as the striker and Walcott down the right. If he isn’t trusted to play as a striker in a friendly, is it likely that he’ll play there in a league game?
You’ve given the bloody explanation in your post. Neither played all their teams matches. They haven’t played very much football in the last two months. They are not match fit, so starting them would mean we would require two substitutions just to cover them when they start to flag.
I have no idea why everybody is “How the fuck could this happen?” when we all know players don’t perform at their best if they aren’t match fit. Match fit is a bloody sight more difficult to achieve than “perfectly healthy”.
I’m hoping for atleast one of them to feature in the cologne game. Stop it wenger, stop it.
I’d be shocked if Podolski doesn’t play in the Cologne game as a salute to their former player. Even if it’s a 20 minute sub appearance I think he needs to get on the pitch.
And you want me to believe this? No way Mr Wenger!!!
haha, oh man
Chamakh and Afobe as only strikers
guess I’m skipping the first game of the season, don’t want to overload my central nervous system and risk getting epilepsy fits when presented with chamakh’s first touch and finishing
Chamakh to score a brace and then hit the crossbar from 3 yards out in the 89th minute. You heard it here first.
I’ll take it.
Now, how is the defence going to go?
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
…Ahem, well, there’s nothing anyone can do about this. I’d rather the two be fully fit and ready before tossing them out into the water. Anyway, a front three of Gervinho, Theo, and Chamakh, with Diaby, Song, and Arteta in behind, can handle Sunderland. And we’ll have our best centerbacks available, so I think we’ll do fine.
WHAT…THE…FUCK?This could only happen at the Arsenal.Oh well,at least Diaby’s fit!!!
Ermm, I wouldn’t speak so soon..
Um yeah, he might trip on his shoe laces and suddenly “he will be out for 2weeks, just a minor hamstring though”.
This simply cannot be true :/
For fucks sake. Maybe I don’t know enough about this but this seems to be one of the most rookie errors we could have made. I have never heard of another club failing to get their players, their key players, fit. Thankfully we could still have van persie for the Sunderland game, but that means that deal will go down to the wire. Gaaarh!!
Its not that they are not fit, they just would be blown away at the type of game the Premier League is so Wenger is bringing them in slowly. At least we can expect bench appearances from them against Sunderland.
The competition is so fierce in the premier league that every single game counts. Having a weakened side out at the beginning of the season is a big problem that should of been avoidable. You drop points at the beginning of the season and you may find yourself playing catch up for a lot of the year. I know teams last year dropped a lot of points but that is no excuse. Unlike last season, we need to go out on a flyer and rack up as many points as possible. We have a tough few opening games and brining… Read more »
Maybe we’ll see Santos-Gerv-Walcott as the front three for the first games, didnt look too bad against City tbh.
I’d take a bit of that.
Was that a plan? Practice for Sunderland, knowing the newbies weren’t likely to be ready for the PL quite soon enough?
The Nigeria game was the main problem here, which makes me think that we were overreaching ourselves trying to play our preseason on three continents in 6 weeks. Hopefully this is something the club will learn from.
Well that has dampened my mood after feeling really positive with the 2 transfers we have made and the reported transfers of cazorla and sahin.
This is unbelievable! Have they not seen our first 6 fixtures ? We could easily have a similar start to last season and be catching up the whole season.
Really pissed off! What a joke.
Unfortunately this is how Arsenal integrates players. We can’t throw players into the opening game of the season at the intensity we play at, while the added intensity of being the opening game may prove too much for the new guys. We have seen it before where players need a few games to settle. I remember Wilshire getting criticized for his performance at Liverpool.
These guys are coming from a different league so they will have to adapt. Some are quicker than others, some don’t adapt at all: Park!
Um, actually Chamakh started against Liverpool in our first (and his first) league game. This is a complete joke. If the two of them are unfit for the start of the season, without them being injured, this represents a massive fuck up at the club. Theo, Kos, the Ox… Not to mention players at other clubs who were at the Euros. If we can’t get our new signings fit – who are itching to play – well fuck, we are run by amateurs.
Worrying, but nothing to be done about it now. We’ll just have to hope that our players do a good job. If Eisfeld is selected for the squad, he might be able to do something for us. Not suggesting we use him all year (a loan deal would be better) but we need someone leading the line and he seems to have had a good pre-season. Whatever happens, we need to get some good results in our first five games – I’d happily take draws against both of the mancs. If we’re down in 17th again like last season I… Read more »
I wasn’t disappointed with last year’s campaign…. not in the end. At the beginning… well, OK that was disappointing, but the recovery was good.
What the fuckety fuck. With Bendtner and Parks out, who will play striker? Robin ‘oh Im too good for Arsenal’ Persie or Marouane ‘I dont know why Im a footballer’ Chamack?
Arsene should bench them both and take a page out of Del Bosque’s book by playing that false-9 shiz that seems to have worked well for them.
Well fuck, I’d take Persie for that game any day of the week, even if he bails the next day.
We need a result, regardless how we get it. If that means playing greedy cunt, so be it. We can’t afford losing points to the likes of Sunderland
I’d take RVP until January. “Sorry Robin, the new guys are going to take a few months to bed in. You can leave in January, if you still want to go.”
Then all we need is to be 10 points ahead in the PL with a lot of our hardest games already behind us. Then lets see if he wants to win a trophy or not.
We don t have Iniesta, Xavi and Fabregas to do that. Maybe we will one day but now it s littlebit different.
A little more worrying is the possibility that their first taste of Premiership football may be at the Britannia against Lenny’s marauding orcs.
Calm down. Gervinho can play upfront as he did against City, with Theo, Ox and (hopefully) Cazorla behind him. That should be enough against Sunderland at home. After that first game, Giroud and Podolski will both be fit, I´d think.
Rosicky injured again. Anyone suprised by this?
Rosicky’s pretty surprised I guess.
Surprised you feel the need to bring it up seeing as that news is a week old and no-one even mentioned Ros here.
“Stay away from the Time Portal, heihaci”. Remember? I told you that tomorrow.
Maybe Wenger is just saying this to help the van persie situation. If we can relay to other teams that we are going to be short of strikers at the start of the year we can ask for a higher price, or even try keep him. If he leaves, Giroud and Podolski should start.
Wenger at his sneaky best
It’s a double-edged sword, it also means that other clubs think we’re desperate and they ramp up the prices for players we want to buy
“It’s a double-edged sword”
Good. Giroud can use that on Pubis’ Orcs.
We aren’t in the market for strikers though.
@reisbearcum, We are “m’baye” in for niang. He’s a striker you know.
I’m telling you guys that we are reselling them both! 😉
Giroud realised that there is 10% chance we are keeping van Persie, and Podolski is crazy cos he was targeting his number… or he is targeting no. 9 now but Wenger will give it to Afobe?! 😉
Lol, all of you guys fell for it! It’s called “stirring the pot”.
And Wenger expects us to believe that,before the asia tour,i thought he said fans in Asia would be the first to see the new signings in action for arsenal but they didnt even go,so i dont believe him 1 bit
CHILL PEOPLE. We got this. 😀
it might be just a tactical thingy.
Who knows…wenger knows!!
People need to relax. There’s no way Podolski and Giroud won’t be fit enough unless they pick up an injury. There’s a real need to read between the lines with what Wenger’s saying here.
that’s true. he does not say that neither will play against sunderland. only that they will be eased into the PL
Perhaps you should tell Andrew that. The article begins: “Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud will likely miss the first game of the new Premier League campaign.”
Fair point
which also means they will be making their debut at home.way to go arsene.
Seriously, this has to be grounds for correcting the article. I’m a bit surprised that this piece is still up on Arseblog News in its original form: it clearly distorts remarks by Wenger and draws conclusions that should not have been drawn. The article claims in its headline and its opening paragraph that Wenger has “confirmed” that Giroud and Podolski probably won’t be available for the first EPL game. This is wrong. He has not made this claim: “easing in” could simply mean that he might start one of these players on the bench, or he might sub them off… Read more »
Sorry, hadn’t refreshed and therefore didn’t see that you’d already acknowledged my comment just above!
Peter – I take your point onboard. Neither the article nor the headline were written in an attempt to mislead; it was just the way I interpreted the quotes when I first came across them. With 19 days to go until the season starts I was surprised that Wenger opted to be so cautious. I suppose I figured if he wasn’t going to give them any game time 7 days before the season it would be pretty hard to imagine them starting the first game of the season. That being said, what do I know. What do any of us… Read more »
I think it’s to take the pressure of both of them because who they might be replacing and for the fans not to expect to much at the start
The odds on both starting the first game have just soared then. It’s a bit of a leap from ‘easing them in’ to ‘they’ll miss the start’ in my mind.
Both could play an hour against the leprechaun’s boys, or one could come on for the other.
No reason to soil nappies quite yet.
This is completely fucking ridiculous. First we don’t take two players that didn’t exactly have a taxing Euro tournament on tour, yet still took The Ox who played as much as Giroud, then we claim they are short of fitness. What sort of clusterfuck is this?
Meanwhile Podolski is prancing about in Nigeria with Per and Bac.
Someone needs to lose their job over this mess as we are putting marketing needs ahead of our need to be competitive from the very start of the season.
Would you people chill the fuck out? We’ve got plenty of others who can score goals, I’m sure they can fill in for a day goddd -_-
Our commercial revenues have a huge bearing on what figures are available to bring in new recruits and pay wages. Our marketing needs are essential.
Our marketing needs may be essential, but so is performing on the pitch. The two go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. We could still have taken Podolski and Giroud on tour and given them some minutes playing. Instead we chose to send Podolski to Nigeria to prance about on a stage rather than give him the chance to start bedding into the team. We could have sent Jack Wilshere and Frimpong to Nigeria.
And where is Giroud? Training at home on his own?
Don’t worry about it, everyone is forgetting the other proven goalscorer in the side.
Merterscielny will be solid at the back,
While TV5 steps into the CF role.
It could well just be an acclimatising thing, they still have to adjust to the system and the pace of the league.
I doubt many of us expected them to have played every single game next season anyway, so big diff.
Having them available from September and Wilshere back in October could provide a series of increased positivity to the benefit of team morale.
Ah, well. So much for hitting the ground running.
If Chamakh starts against Sunderland, will he be allowed to have a few crafty puffs on his Shisha pipe in the dressing room before the game?
I hope he’ll be allowed to play the game without any twats booing him.
If this is true and we are missing (takes deep breath) sagna frimpong wilshire rosicky lansbury podolski giroud rvp plus squillaci arshavin bendtner and park. i would go 3-5-2
szcesney
koscielny mertesacker vermaelen
chamberlain arteta song diaby santos
walcott gervinho
But it looks like Walcott will be gone. It’s obvious that he can’t agree terms of a new contract with the club, so my guess is that he will be sold – probably to Liverpool.
Carzola will be his replacement.
Who’s Carzola?
He’s some kind of…….fuck right off, you know what he means.
Carzola is Gorgonzola’s brother.
Carzola doesn’t play for Arsenal. Cazorla may do, one day.
This seems to be more about fitness and integration rather than injury.
Remember how long it took for Ju Young Park to be ready? It’s the Arsenal way. It’s how we do things. Take that Manchester! Take that Chelsea!
We’re so confident of the title this season – we’re going to start the season with Santos, Chamakh, and a malcontent, lardy-arse, want-away, stay-at-home, gobby Russian up front.
And you can’t get any more confident than that! Ha!
Fuck me, I think I may have just read a different article to some of you. Arsene says he’ll ease them in, not that they won’t play. I’m guessing that means one may start and play 60 mins and one will be sub. It might also be construed as a veiled warning to RVP and his potential suitors that he will play him as he did Na$ri, I assume Van Persie doesn’t fancy 90mins of abuse and will pressure his agents/advisors/cunt hangers on, to get a deal done.
I’m pretty sure Wenger means they’re not ”match fit”, not that they’ve picked up injuries. So why are people here complaining about the Arsenal physios?
Would love to see us go 3-5-2 but unsure if this only works in manager mode
Arsene’s predictions usually do not correspond to reality.
Let’s say we do sign Cazorla. Surely he won’t be fit for the start of the season either? Correct me if I’m wrong, but he didn’t go on your with Malaga and surely he can’t have spent enough time working on his fitness to be fit for the start of the BPL season?
If arsenal were to be believed and giroud and podolski were bought as additions to rvp then surley by definition we need another striker?
Or do you think that people at the club have been lying to the fans and they knew rvp was leaving well before the season ended…. Who would have thought that eh.
You can call it lying but revealing our hand in transfer dealings will weaken our position. I know what I prefer. Wenger is a smart man, and has always played his cards close to his chest. I thought everyone would have cottoned on by now! 15 years…
I’m pretty sure RVP had told the club he wanted to leave before the end of the season. I think back a post match interview, was probably after West Brom, Robin was asked about his contract and he took and overly long swig from his water bottle and a big gulp the trotted out the ‘ whatever happens I’ll always be a Gooner’ line. However I don’t expect the club to tell us the truth if it weakens their hand. If the Cazorla deal is done, I expect Walcott to be out the door. I don’t think he has the… Read more »
RVP didn’t need to tell Arsenal he wanted to leave. He did the job just by not signing. That would be enough for them to search out players who could replace him or enhance him should he decide to stay. Podolski and Giroud were bought with both outcomes considered, I should think.
thats wenger! always unpredictable and doing the opposite of what the world expects!
If the Sahin loan deal doesn’t work….How do we feel about going back for Alvarez from Inter?. Not so long ago, playing for Arsenal was like watching a rose grow through concrete….or something.
Don’t worry gays, we have Santos!
Another Santos gays line. How refreshingly original
I know you got one burning inside you, it’s okay now son. You can say it.
Go…….
I usually get about a thousand thumbs down hits for my anti wenger posts. But this really is deja vu. Also if it is not true and they do play then the man is a fool as selling tickets to a category C game with the weakest squad in his era is going to be hard enough but not to announce that the 2 new strikers will be playing could be a suicidal move on the financial side of things. Liverpool last August was not a sell out!!!! Sunderland this August with Chamakh leading the attack just mouthwatering stuff.
I really hope Wenger is being coy. This is so tiring as a fan though. It seems like only Arsenal would sign two quality players, that are not injured, then not have them ready for the start of the season. aaarrrgghh.
And surely it would have been better to bring them on the Asia trip to get 30-45 minutes in a couple matches to get them ready? Integrating them into the squad should be top priority one would think.
[…] 来源：[Arseblog News] […]
What is it about our club that fails to recognize that every game counts? We will throw away points in September that will haunt usblater
Chrisgonna. So you one of those that believed rvp was staying then.
And assume you think there was no link to season ticket sales in keeping the fact that rvp was leaving.
They have a big enough queue for season tickets that they would still sell them. They don’t have loyalty to any particular fans they just need somebody to buy each season ticket. That’s how businesses work. Football clubs are all like that.
Or it may well be a message to RVP that he won’t be sold in the near foreseeable future…..
seems the Arsenal love playing “hide and seek” with “pre-season troubles” and it’s like we know where it’s hiding even before it runs off to hide, because we always find it.
I’m tired stoned and far too drunk but I think that Dutch cunt is staying.
You are stoned.
Captain Caveman. Stoned in the Stone Age.