Arsene Wenger has ruled Lukas Podolski out for up to ten weeks after confirming the German’s hamstring injury is far worse than initially thought.
The striker pulled up in the opening moments of the second-half against Fenerbahce on Tuesday night and had to be helped from the field by the club’s medical team.
Speaking ahead of the North London derby, Wenger gave an update to Arsenal.com on the 28-year-old’s fitness:
“It is bad news about Lukas Podolski as he will be out for eight to 10 weeks. His hamstring is much more damaged than we thought at the start. It is very disappointing and we have paid a very heavy price for that win [over Fenerbahce]. We have to be patient now.”
Unfortunately, it sounds as though Mikel Arteta is still some way from being involved in the first team, although Thomas Vermaelen is making steady progress.
“Arteta is doing OK but there are few weeks to go with him, Thomas Vermaelen could be back after the international break,” reported Wenger.
In better news Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey will be both involved against Spurs, with the boss happy to reveal that they received only bumps and bruises rather than the feared ankle and groin problems spoken about post-match.
As things stand with just over four days left of the transfer window we’ve only Olivier Giroud and Yaya Sanogo up front to keep us going until November.
If the need to bolster our options wasn’t already explicit, it certainly is now…oh, and we could also do with someone in defence, midfield, maybe a goalkeeper, a winger etc.
Just in case you’re reading Arsene…
Dear God,
What have we done to deserve this?
Not reinforced our squad…
Doesn’t mean we deserve this, horrible coincidence that we’ve got more injuries than everyone else and we haven’t strengthened. If we had Swansea’s injury list then we’d be fine.
We have more injuries than everyone else EVERY FUCKING SEASON. It should never come as a surprise.
It’s simple really, had we strenghthened, poldi would not have been out there bursting his arse when the battle had already been won in turkey.
shoulda given gervinho’s/arshavins replacement a run out and let poldi lose on sunday vs Sp*rs.
We better strengthen NOW. FUCKIGN NOW Arsene, Ivan and fucking Stan. It felt great to beat Fulham and Fenerbahce but that is PAPER OVER THE CRACKS. We will probably win the North London derby but then we will lose against stupid teams starting in October and by December it will be disaster. If we don’t strengthen you have committed this team, who would have otherwise gotten 1st to 3rd, to below 6th, because of the lack of a squad. FUCK.
“We will probably win the North London derby…”
What are you basing this on? A dream you had?
Because it’s certainly not based on the players we have available.
Yet.
He has based it on the fact Spurs are shit & we smash them every season at home.
Inactivity, indecision, incompetence.
Or did you mean the fans rather than the club?!
Somewhere in the past we’ve chosen Arsenal to be our club
Oh well. Cazorla wide left. Rosicky in no.10. Wilshere/Rambo sitting. No options on the bench. Maybe flamini if we get him done in time.
If we get an injury to a midfielder now we are well and truly fucked. For that matter and injury to a centre half. And an injury to our sole striker.
An injury and we’re fucked
We can bring on Nacho and Jenks when we’re 3-0 up at the 60 minutes. And give Fabianski some playing time when we’re 5-0 ahead 10 minutes later…
We all know Rosicky is next.
All we need now is a champions league draw against juventus and shaktar donetsk for this day to end like it has started..
Or, we could draw PSG, Dortmund and Napoli as our group… That would be pretty horrific
Or, we could draw PSG, Dortmund and Napoli as our group… That would be pretty horrific
Fuck them. We’ll play them in their back garden with their granny as the ref.
Man up, ffs.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Curse You Spuds.. Everything bad in the world is thier fault..
Including your spelling?
That’s not nice barber but as one famous actor once said while fighting off aliens that look like spud fans “game over man”
Nice Aliens ref Micko.
From that film, i’d have Vasquez on our side. Any cunt who even thought about going anywhere near our goal would get a bullet.
5pur2?
Well this is terrific, never known a window like it. Pathetic
Wenger better have a few Aces up his sleeves because in no way has he earnt a new contract. As for the fact Richard Law had a world class signing wrapped & AW had a change of heart? When does it stop? I know there were rumours doing the rounds he had a change if heart on Giroud too last year but it was too late. Absolutely gutted
Fuck sakes! Stop spreading stupid rumors!
Couldn’t agree more, while the transfer window hasn’t been great, at least some of the bad feeling is generated by rumors creating false hopes, then people getting all angry when we don’t sign someone we were never in for in the first place.
Can you please tell me who we were in for this window? Yaya F-ing Sa-no-go.
The only player never to leave Arsenal.
Thats the point I was trying to make, know one knows, and then a lot of people seem to be enraged when it looks like we’ve lost another potential signing that we may or may not have been in for.
I’m just saying its pointless getting worked up over rumoured interest in player when we have almost no proof that there is any interest there anyway.
Comments about the rumours miss the point. The fact is we haven’t bought a single player in the nearly 3 months when we were supposed to and were promised we would and now being proven we needed to. Arsenal fans have been more than patient waiting years for the club to invest. Now the new funding deals are in place money should have been pouring out of the club. Don’t get me wrong I still think AW is a master tactician which makes it all the more surprising he has not brought in players, however he/AFC have made a complete… Read more »
I agree, but i still think its a relevant factor into all of the negativity at the moment. Yes, a huge amount more could and should have been done by now, if it was up to me it would have all been done before the far east tour, but it seems ever since the Higuain debacle there has been people desperately holding on to anything they hear in the media, and then taking the anger out on the club when said move fails to materialise.
Get well soon, Poldi!
Let’s hope we don’t have to rush his recovery and screw him over even more.
Wenger, may I suggest storing your cheque book in a GPS tracker so it wouldn’t get lost again?
Such a shame, he was looking like he might have been going into a really good run of form too. I’m not surprised it’s worse than the original 3 weeks though, he looked like he was really struggling on the touch line before they got the stretcher over.
That’s a mess!
FFS…
Perhaps Gnabry will be able to show us why he is so highly rated…
Regardless of signings, I think we will see some of these youngsters getting game time over the next couple of weeks.
Exactly my words
Pires is a free agent?
Not only free agent/semi-retired, but
http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/robert-pires-spotted-watching-friendly-match-in-greece-invited-to-play-second-half-bags-goal-and-assist/
Sign him up!
god i love pirates.
he is huge compared to the tiny greeks and still gorgearse.
I loved watching the three guys running forward ahead of Pires, all thinking “it doesn’t matter which one of us receives the pass, it will be a perfect pass that puts us clean through”.
Beyond caring now
I stopped caring in July 🙁
Ruled out for 8-10 weeks in a game that didn’t matter.
Would it have mattered if it happened against Spurs on Sunday?!?!
The fact is injury’s happen in football, its part & parcel of the game, having a squad that cant cope with it however is inexcusable.
Exactly that. It’s all well and good waxing lyrical about our starting 11, but how many times in the last decade (or ever) has our starting 11 remained unsullied for an entire season?
In what sense did a Champions League qualifier not matter?
This particular tie didn’t matter because Fenerbache have been banned from Europe for 2 years.
So even if we lost 25-0 and played our U14 team, we would still have gone through. Obviously, Wenger and Gazidis didn’t know that this judgement had been made until after the game.
5/1 on Ladbrokes for us not to sign anyone. Lump on everyone.
Maybe that’s what they’ve decided to do with the war chest.
i think Arsenal have taken this bet.
Tick Tock Dick, Dick Tock
Talking about Dick, he is useless
I think Dick is the Diaby of chief negotiators!!!!!. soon he will be redundant.
I will be watching sundays game behind the sofa clutching my old teddy I have turfed out the attic thumbsucking. My therapist numer on speed dial.
Need company? 😉
Pussy.
January LANS
Feckin feck
Didn’t u here wenger the other night? He doesn’t listen to what people say on Facebook or twitter or websites or in papers or fans or chief execs or his coaches or his scouts. No one.
Maybe he only listens to the little boy inside him.
dont be brainwashed by the media!!!!!!
wengers words
No one will be brain washed by Arsene because no one has a fucking clue what he is thinking!
One by one they drop like flies. In the name of Bergkamp please spend some money Wenger please.
In september…Wenger: now when is vermaelen fit I’m thinking about playing Mertesacker up front. You know, now we will not be a bit short anymore…
Is there any truth in the di maria bid? I hope so!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…!!!
So bad for Arsanal that after much much, do not add to their team one bit tuffer
At this moment, our senior options on the flanks are: Theo, Cazorla, Gibbs/Monreal. After that, we’re scaping around for Ryo and Gnabry.
Our Striking options: Giroud, Sanogo, Theo (bearing in mind if theo plays up top, it means we’re relying on our poor choice of wide players to cover for him)
1 injury to Giroud and we are well and truly fucked.
I like Jenks’ attacking play more than his defensive abilities. So maybe we could try him on the wing too, if a game needs killing off…
Why couldnt we have waited until Sept 2nd to sell Gervinho – least then we could have played him on Tuesday night rather than risking Poldi. Likewise we could have retained Miquel for a few more weeks and played him the other night – just as well we didnt lose the BFG in such a routine game
Four days left for closing window yet another story, hopples…….
This is a sad news. The odds seem to be against us on the injury front. Maybe this will force Arsene’s hand a little. A striker is now seriously needed on or before the window closes.
Gutted for Poldi, he was looking sharp and the fact that UEFA kicked out Fener the very next day was just a sick joke.
As for new signings, they better happen or god only knows how bad the atmos at the Grove will be IF we have another piss poor day like, erm, lemme see, the very first home game of the new season.
Fuck nuts.
Don’t hope on any new player, proved Wenger. So damn it
I know that our good friend Ivan Gazidis has a busy summer playing Event Manager for our Asia promo tour….
But has anybody wondered what he actually does during the rest of the year?
I haven’t got words…….
Whatever happens, I´m sticking with my Arsenal motto:
Oh, for fucks sake..
whatever happens, I’m sticking with my Arsenal…
As soon as I realised that the NLD was a day before deadline day, I knew it would be another 8-2 in the making.
We’re going to get embarrassed again and then we’ll go out and pay over the odds for a load of dross. £18m for Gareth Barry anyone?
Or we beat them and with our 0 spend and their 100million spend we’d go above them…
Oh and in case you are reading Arsene you may like to see this moment in time as fairly pivotal to the club.
AAAAARGHHHHHH!
How angry will we be if after the transfer window closes, Wenger says we didn’t have enough time to get Top Top quality players in?!?!?
Highest price ticket for Sunday’s game with Spurs is £126. That’s £126 more than the club have spent in the transfer window so far.
I’m fairly sure I saw one for £281. Just saying…
Suckers
hahahhahahaha
Yep that seems about right. Wenger’s term weeks when predicting such things is actually months for the rest of us.
Can we sign Reus yet?
Would there be a stage at the emirates for flamini’s arrival?
Yeah. It’ll be called the ‘End Stage’ and be on the verge of collapse.
I’m positive we get fouled alot because the opposition know the replacement for one of our players… well doesn’t exist.
If I was the opposition manager i’d certainly be targeting Giroud and Mert for some rough treatment.
Arsene Wenger is reminding me more and more of The Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. In the beginning he’s quite impressive, killing his opponent by a sword through his visor (winning the double, an unbeaten season). Then fighting defiantly while losing his limbs (players). I half expect his comment for the next serious player injury to be ‘Tis but a fleshwound!
It’s not even as if we’ve had a huge amount of injuries, we’ve lost Podolski, the Ox and Arteta in the forward positions. That’s ridiculous, but I’m still not expecting any signings. There isn’t enough time unless we just go all in straight away, and lets face it that’s not going to happen. Half our senior staff will be watching the draw in Monaco today, so nothing’s going to happen. What is going on? Nothing makes any sense any more
I think every Arsenal fan should go on a self imposed media blackout until Tuesday as everyone is starting to get caught up in the media hyperbole… Without this noise and distraction imagine yourself this situation – on Sunday we beat the Spuds, (an uneventful 2-0 let’s say), Liverpool and ManUre draw, we’re 3rd in the league on goal difference, a point behind Liverpool and the Chavs. Monday we then announce a few really strong signings (who/where/what is anyone’s guess), oh and this afternoon’s CL draw turns out nice for us. Come Tuesday you tune back in or pick up… Read more »
Since you’ve considered the best-case scenario, let’s consider the worst case scenario as well:
We lose
Giroud/Mertesacker/Koscielney gets a long term injury
We buy no-one
Any of those possibilities seem fairly apocalyptic to me. Somebody hold me.
* We’ve lost to that lot before, it’d hurt but it’s not a knockout blow. * At least if happens on Sunday we can still buy someone on Monday, if those 3 get injured in the international games then I’ll cry. * Summer of 2011 we were in a similar supposed ‘crisis’ situation, last day of the window we bought Arteta and Mertesacker (and Santos but gloss over that one), if we buy no-one then i’ll cry. (p.s. Not saying the last day of the sales approach is a good one just that we will do some business – whether… Read more »
While not really sharing it, I enjoy your positive attitude, it’s really refreshing and I truly hope, you’re right.
I’m probably not that positive in reality, it just felt cathartic to write it.
That said the doom and gloom merchants are getting a bit tiring.
I do think we’ll do some business and hopefully it’ll lift the spirits and help us kick on, but that doesn’t mean that after the dust settles on the transfer window I wouldn’t do an internal review of the transfer situation and maybe look at the personnel we have driving our transfers. (You know something needs fixing if you’re looking at Mr Levy somewhat enviously).
Media blackout apart from Arseblog, I think you meant to say.
But of course, Arseblog always comes in handy this time of year – I often misspell the name of the new French kid we’ve signed on my Google/Youtube highlights clip search otherwise…
I agree. I got the sharpest of shocks when I mistakenly typed Philluppe M’Dildo into YouTube.
I agree. I got the sharpest of shocks when I mistakenly typed Phillupp M’Dildo into YouTube.
Come come Truth. the second as a ‘shock’ doesn’t wash.
Well,good that all these are happening before Transfer Deadline and not after Wenger has refused to sign someone so I ll have a good reason to be angry with him
Wenger has admitted that, number wise, the squad is short. It will be absolutely insern if he does not buy anybody!
Don’t worry guys, by the end of the window we are going to have Di Maria, Mata, Benzema, Rooney, Ozil, Flamini and Pele.
If any of the left options gets injured too.let him play any of his assistant coaches up front.
Sorry all injured as well.
Boro’s injured?! Then we really are in the shit.
Don’t worry we will have 5 panic buys on Monday after the spuds fuck us over on Sunday. Just don’t loose you mental strength as we will need it over the next 4 days.
Keep calm keep calm don’t panic 🙁
[…] 来源：[Arseblog News] […]