Arsene Wenger has confirmed that young Spanish right-back Hector Bellerin has been drafted into the first team squad for tomorrow night’s game with Swansea after Laurent Koscielny suffered a calf problem in the defeat at Chelsea.
The French international is set for a scan today ahead of a more detailed prognosis. In his place Thomas Vermaelen will start alongside Per Mertesacker with Kieran Gibbs likely to feature presuming his red card is overturned by The FA.
“We have lost Laurent Koscielny for Tuesday’s game with a calf problem,” Arsene Wenger told the club’s website.
“I don’t know how long he will be out for. He has a scan today [Monday]. Everyone else should be available.
A question mark continues to hang over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s involvement. The England international looks likely to be charged retrospectively for his handball although the Gunners plan to fight any such decision on the basis Eden Hazard’s shot was going wide and thus a goal-scoring opportunity was not prevented.
“There is a question mark about Chamberlain. The situation over his suspension will be decided today. After that I will make a decision.
“At the moment he is in the squad. Right now only Koscielny is out of the squad and he has been replaced by Hector Bellerin. We expected Kieran Gibbs’ suspension to be overturned.”
Realistically, given Chamberlain’s obvious intent to prevent a goal it seems unlikely he’ll escape scot-free.
I hear he could one day be as good as Ignasi Miquel
Miquel?
He’s one of the best young RBs around.
Bellerin. …….*tumbleweed*……shhhhhh.
My good people, between now and May 17th, 2014, all that really needs to be said is:
COYG!!!
Here Here!
Maldini was once a teenager too!
He’s an RB right? but from my limited knowledge he’s got a certain flair about him in the final third. Winger perhaps?
Maybe it’s in case of something happening to either Mertesacker or Verm. Sagna goes to CB, and Bellerin comes in at RB.
Bellerin is back-up for Jenkinson, who can play anywhere in the back four.
Heh. You lot really believe Bellerin is ahead of Jenkinson in the pecking order? My arse…
I thought we had Jenko for that situation
YOU BELL!
Bouldie: How do we get more penetration?
Wenger: Stick your bell … er … in?
Meanwhile Ramsey is due to be back for Manchester City – Ha! Believe that when I see it and Wilshire has no return date! Ozil should be back to looking his puzzled best for the semi final.
And fuck you too 🙂
wilshEEEEEEEEEre
Has Wenger been sacked yet? No? he is still here…….maybe Man City will put the final nail in the coffin and then the board will realise how much the club and indeed Wenger himself has degraded over the years………..Wenger reached his peak in 2004 and since has been going down and down and down. Arsenal don’t even play beautiful football these days, to be honest Man City, Liverpool, Everton and even Southampton are much better to watch these days and play some entertaining football. Vote me down all you want but that is the sad truth and its there for… Read more »
Some of our football this season has been terrific.. the best/most beautiful in a while.. Wilshere vs. Norwich easily best team goal of season, followed by Rosicky vs. Palace… I believe we are the only one capable of these type of goals!
Rosicky’s great team goal was vs Sunderland if I’m not mistaken?
Yes my mistake! 🙂
So go support Man City, Liverpool, Everton or even Southampton…
Nice condescending rhetorical question in the first sentence!
Time of the month dear?
C’mon, let’s stick by the guy until the end of the season. We’re still in the running for the FA Cup which is one more trophy than we would have won in the past nine years. There more we (the supporters) get behind the team, the quicker the guys will get over Saturday’s travesty. #inArsenewetrust
Well he gets good on Fifa so he must be good.
…
Tomorrow we set ourselves on track again. COYG.
He’s a good prospect this kid. Really is. On a sour note, I’ve just heard Maureen give an interview in which he said ‘We SMASHED them” and was pretty much laughing. ARRRGGGHH! Right now, all I want is to beat that twat 7-0 at The Bridge next season. I would take relegation for it to happen. That is how much I hate that cunt and their plastic, glory hunting, racist, mouthy, mutated ‘fans’. They get 42,000 at their dump every game. Thing is, before that dodgy Russian Sugar Daddy turned up, they had gates of 8,000 while we were playing… Read more »
I don’t get Mourinho. I bitch/moan/complain all my life and i get called a twat, but when he does it he’s a mind game psychological specialist. Hopefully the 7th goal is a deflection off his face as he comes on the pitch to have “mind Games” with the official
Well stoke players always go in with a intent to break legs but dont get punished until it happens. Ox had the intention but was it going in?
Seriously we need Giroud to buck up ASAP. It won’t be too long before the crowd turns on him.
Also we really need to stop playing santi so deep. His natural instinct is to take risk to create an attacking opportunity but when you do that in defensive areas you will get him getting picked off and countered…leading to results like Saturday
It’s injuries like this that do my head in. Player plays way too often, not much time to recover, injures himself. How do we stop this from happening? Do we need more players the manager “trusts” and can rotate with? Chelsea have the meanest defense and yet they are able to rotate reasonably and their squad is largely injury free. The manager’s distrust of Vermaelen says what he thinks of him.
Chelski’s back four has been pretty much stable this season with Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill and Azpilicueta as Mourinho doesn’t trust Luiz and Cole.
Mentioning so many cunts in one sentence feels awkward. Thank god I’m not a Chelsea supporter.
Bellerin!! Don’t slam the boy before he even gets a chance. Anyway, looks like it will be interesting keeping the squad fit the rest of the season…
We are well and truly screwed as was to be. Not belittling bellerin but i wonder if he’s any match for the likes of Bony, Dyer and later Lukaku, Mirallas.
Usual positive posts
I remember Swansea at home last year, a dark dark day.
No repeats please
why do we have so many injuries so often?
A large part of it has to be put down to lack of rotation, and a large part of it down to bad luck
You can put it down to bad luck if it happens once or twice, but it is a regular occurence with us, year in year out – Wenger is obviously overworking the players. Why has he not been rotating, especially against the minnows? We have enough players to make 2 midfields. Use them!!
I don’t know what to say so I’ll be shutting up.
What’s wrong with vermaelen? Am I missing something
If we get Gibb’s red card overturned. Does that mean the Ox would be banned in his stead, as he was the one who committed the offence? Hope not, because the Ox is in my Fantasy Footie squad.
This may have been explained somewhere on the net, but I am too lazy to go search. hah.
Intent my arse. It was either a goal scoring opportunity or it wasn’t. You can’t really judge a players intent. But of course this is the FA and this is Arsenal so probably he’ll be banned for 5 games for the card and 4 games for impersonating Kieran Gibbs.
The problem with Arsenal is Schezney…That young man lacks experiece and has kept on embarrassing the gunners. He was in goal when Man city beat us 8:2, Liverpool beat us 5:1 while Chelsea hammered us 6:0 not to talk of his challenge against Bayern that reduced us to 10 men.
Honestly, if it was Schezney that we’ve been using for our FA cup matches no doubt his mistakes would have cost us darely.
it’s Szczesny and he’s a fucking good goalkeeper
Hmmm… You may be on to something.
Then again, I was supporting the Arse for each of those games, so perhaps it was me.
On the other hand, where were YOU on Saturday, Dr.
Gibbs looks likely to get his red card chalked off. I hear Andre Marriner was asked to send a letter of apology to the aggrieved player. On opening the letter this morning, Lewis Hamilton was quoted as saying ”What the fuck is this?”
Im nicking that!
This, sir, made me laugh like a horse… still doing that….
PAHAHAHAHAAA
Drop Schez and put the Ox in goal. Reminded me of a young Bob Wilson.
Interesting to see some of the kids returning after that debacle. Only worry about Bellerin is that he’s a Barca youth product. If he turns into a world beater, we know what happens next.
Hmmm…this is not looking!
Why do we get injured players after every damn game?!
Marriner will not be dropped this weekend, what a farce. If he can’t get the player right he obviously hasn’t seen what happened.
Football is corrupt.
Yeah. Who was he talking to? It’s a mute point as it was a penalty (but not a red). We were getting dry humped and I’m not giving our players any get out here. Still, the FA need to explain how he reached that decision. He didn’t give the penalty (how could he after not seeing the right player) and the linesman didn’t flag. He was talking on the mic to someone. For the sake of the game, it’s important to know who that was. I heard that there were going to start recording the conversations the ref has. If… Read more »
Don’t care who he goes on to support so long as he goes…
Whoever plays, he is a gunner and we will back him. However this team does, and no matter how much they deserve the criticism they are getting, when they are on the pitch, they need our support. Do I expect us to clobber City this weekend? No. Do I want them to? Hell yeah.
COYG. We are with you. Respond strongly and fight hard. No matter how badly you get clobbered on a given day, we will still support you with all our heart and soul on the next match day. Let’s do this.
I don’t know what was more painful: losing 6-0 or losing to those c**** from West London. I think arsenal are on the brink of something special. We finally have the financial muscle power to compete with the other top clubs. We alsohave secured the futures of our best players (Ramsey, carzola etc) and our young players too ( gnabry etc). All that’s needed is a trophy to shut the plastics and those c****who berate us for being trophyless for so long. Things can only get better after being crap for so long (just look at bayern before they won… Read more »
The rules are clear. Ball not going in so yellow card offence. Several ex refs have said, so not sure why this is even an issue.
A little surprised he was picked ahead of Hayden. A top player though.
Can’t believe the red card has been rescinded completely. Bizarre.
Shaz, it’s “Cunts” not “C****” 😉
And Dr Jack Danny, maybe you’ve had too many Jack Danny’s, but it was Utd who beat us 8-2, City *only* done us 6-3. Also, remind me again who our keeper was for the other 28 league games we’ve played this season?
Not bizarre, it’s the rules. Intent has nothing to do with it. He did not prevent a clear goal scoring opportunity. End of story. I feel like I’m still yelling at the fucking tele!
Not bizarre, it’s the rules. Intent has nothing to do with it. He did not prevent a clear goal scoring opportunity. End of story. I feel like I’m still yelling at the fucking tele!t
Trouble is, nothing can compensate us for having to play for an hour with only 10 men against the team currently at the top of the table, just because the ref doesn’t appear to know the rules.
Is there an echo in here!
Bellerin if he keeps his head straight should push jenkinson for RB when Sagna leaves. But we will need a more experience player to be first choice in the likes of Debucchy or Seamus Coleman.
The worry is if Wenger feels he has it done and dusted covering Sagna’s departure with jenkinson and Bellerin.
I hope Vermaelen has a good game. He had such a promising start to his Arsenal career and it would be nice to see him regain his form and stay with us for several more years.
Well, the loons are out tonight. 7
I know it’s obvious, but we’ve been shown up due to a thin squad, quality wise, and we’ve been kicked up the bum with injuries yet again. Having Ozil, Walcott, Wilshere and Ramsey out all at once has taken four vital cogs out of the arsenal machine. Giroud is dead on his feet. Arteta has hit a brick wall. ..
I feel like a disappointed parent; I’m hurt but I still love you, I’ll be there tonight to support you but it’s going to be (just very slightly) hard for me to cheer as loud as I usually do… Do you know what I mean?
I desperately want us to win tonight as one of the steps to recovering from the weekends trouncing but I don’t want to see ‘we’ve won the fucking treble’ celebrations from the players. A bit of humility and a performance worthy of the shirt is the salvo my heart needs
No, on the contrary. If you go there tonight, please be as loud as you can, and a bit more. Be loud for me who lives too far away to join. The team needs our support more than ever. When the whole 11 on the pitch fail, then the 12th man has to get up and run yelling like Achille charging towards Troy’s men.
Please do that for me who will be frustrated in front of my TV.
(in fact, I think that only 10 players failed on Saturday: Rosicky wasn’t at his best, but he fought hard)