*Injury panic klaxon*
Olivier Giroud is set to miss the rest of 2014 after it was revealed he’s fractured a bone in his ankle.
The Frenchman did the damage in the dying minutes of Saturday’s draw with Everton as he blocked a clearance by Sylvain Distin. It looked innocuous at the time, but scans have since underlined the extent of the problem and it’s emerged the damage is even worse than first feared.
Arsene Wenger said, “I still don’t understand how he did it. He overstretched his ankle. It was on the ball, not a contact (with another player). The problem is, I think, his tibia.”
Giroud has featured 102 times since signing for the Gunners in the summer of 2012 and while he’s not everybody’s cup of tea you can’t deny how important a part of the squad he’s been in that time. Second only to Per Mertesacker in terms of appearances last year, he was also the club’s top scorer with 22 goals in all competitions.
Quite how Arsene Wenger decides to deal with the latest injury setback remains to be seen.
It’d be a stupendous risk to try and traverse 20 plus games, across three competitions, without reinforcements, however, with Theo Walcott set to return next month, Alexis Sanchez due to come good *in your own time fella*, Yaya Sanogo and Joel Campbell youthful options and Lukas Podolski still on the books there is room to be ‘creative’ as the boss might say.
Arseblog News thinks it would be creative to sign Lionel Messi … but we’re not holding our breath. Given we need a centre-back and a defensive midfielder we’ve five days to sign a new spine of the team.
And there was us thinking stuff was all under control this summer. That’ll teach us for getting smug. Come on Arsene and Ivan, get the chequebook out, get a quality forward like Malcolm Christie in.
It’s easy.
Balls
Shad Forsythe hang your head in shame
You never know, maybe it could have been worse without him.
Clearly taking the piss about Shad, but seriously, it can’t be a coincidence that we lose so many players so easily.
Shad is the cause of all wars, diseases and sad kittens all overt the world. It is known.
How are freak injuries like this his fault?
Everything’s bigger in Texas, except for sense of humour apparently.
Can’t blame Shad for this.
obviously he’s joking. sheesh
If it was a joke, it was in bad taset.
*bad taste. (bad haste!)
Perhaps we should have held on to Benik Afobe, and let Sanogo out on loan instead. Afobe looks much more comfortable with the ball at his feet, and he posess the ability to create his own goals as he showed today vs Man United. i am not sure what Sanogo got in his toolbox, except muscles and height. Very akward with the ball at his feet, and his finishing leave alot to be desired. How Wenger deem him good enough for the first team and to be apparently the main competitor to Giroud for the striker position is beyond me.… Read more »
To be fair – it’s against a piss poor team. ManUtd defence looked like butter under a hot sun waiting to be sliced.
the price of every available striker has just shot up 50% !
#ShittingHorseCock
Relax, there’s no way Wenger isn’t bringing someone in, he’s not stupid. We can only hope the new man beds in quickly!
He’s not going to buy a new forward, I guarantee it.
We can only guess at this moment, seems I’m one of the few optimistic types around here
We have Sanchez, Walcott, Podolski, Sanogo and Campbell. Do you remember the season where we had -0.5 full backs? He ain’t signing no forward.
I’m having a terrible day, so apologies for spoiling your optimism.
Apologies accepted 😀 I think everyone agrees that if we don’t get a top quality striker in, there’s no way we can genuinely compete for the title.
Podolski, Walcott and Sanchez aren’t center forwards and Sanogo and Campbell are unproven.
Man City’s depth in the striker department is just scary.
“We have Sanchez, Walcott, Podolski, Sanogo and Campbel”. This line is getting increasingly frustrating. Please take Sanogo off that list as a serious option. The others are supposed to be our plan B ‘during a match’ when the Giroud option is not working. They are not supposed to be the only plan we have for half our season. We’ll be right where we were last time around. One dimensional, can’t change things around. All summer we had people, including blogs, speak about how well stocked we are in the front line. Giroud’s injured and we’re in some form of a… Read more »
Coud’nt agree more Moonie! I seriously doubt he is going to go out there and buy a player now but I do not think giroud getting injured is a bad thing at all; its one less mediocre option dispersing among our other mediocre options upfront upfront…. Anyone else who things otherwise is seriously deluded!
Remy and Campbell as option 2 would be an excellent. the bloke wants to play for us!
You’re exactly right, Mr. Jack’s Right Foot. For me, these injuries have only proven this – that we have no depth, and Wenger is too loyal to his players already at the club to go out and buy proper depth. Our only other ‘out-and-out’ centre forward is a guy who hasn’t scored an official goal for us yet (and whose injury record hardly gives one confidence, either), as promising as he looks. We’ve needed an upgrade in defensive midfield all summer, but there’s been little sign of one aside from speculative links with Carvalho. Vermaelen leaving was something everyone knew… Read more »
Not even Wenger can be irrationally optimistic enough not to sign a new striker now. I refuse to believe it. I think his only choice is to spend pretty big, like at least Bony / Cerci / 20M big.
cerci is a winger, so…oh. that means we’re definitely going to buy him and try to convert him.
Bony, Cerci, Ilyn Payne, The Hound…
It entirely depends on how much faith he has in Sanogo, he is second choice battering ram and with goals from the rest of the team I think he’s just about good enough for that…as long as the rest of the team contribute; I’m not just talking Rambo/Sanchez/Walcott either, but Jack/Sanit/Poldi/Ozil too.
It’s not about strikers but goals, and I’m not convinced we have enough in the team.
“We have plenty of players at centre forward. In England as soon as you have a problem, people want you to buy,”
He is not going to buy one……he is going to borrow one. Wenger is tricky.
Wenger’s not stupid, but would you agree it would be stupid not to buy a striker now? Because that’s what we’re looking at. Wenger will not buy a striker. I guarantee it. He’s already said Podolski is staying, and I bet you my left nut he sees the German as an internal solution (he’s not).
Oh, how young you are.
Just like in January when everyone said/thought he should’ve bought a stricker but he bought an injured mid
If Wenger doesn’t buy now then our limited chances to win the title look even more remote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECfRp-jwbI4&t=6s
Recall Benik Afobe?
Did you see that goal he scored against United?! If he could do that every game… phwoarrr.
I did indeed. But I have to confess I was taking the piss given that my dog could score a brace against Utd.
I think its more a case of United being utterly wank, I reckon I could do a job up front against that lot.
Apparently Di Maria is already considering a transfer request.
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu ……………..
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
We’ve played Arshavin as a lone center forward before. He even won a header…once. Cheer up guys! If Aguero and Suarez can lead the line, Alexis (who is at least as muscular as the former and definitely a lot more than the matter) can definitely do it. Giroud has been excellent for us (minus a few games every now and then, admittedly), but it took him a while to get going. Remember when everyone said that he didn’t suit our football at all? And now apparently we can’t play with any other kind of striker. It shall pass, we’ll get… Read more »
I refuse to believe that it has to be an either or situation, at least if we want to compete for the title.
Fair enough, it might not be either or. What I’m saying is that our priorities at this point should be a CB/DM. There was reasonable logic into not looking into another striker as of last week, since we had Giroud + others. There’s no logic behind not signing at least one player for the defensive third, however, and that should probably be foremost on our minds. We can leave a striker for a deadline day scramble if we have to.
Sad to see him on the sidelines
Happy this will likely result in a striker purchase
and will likely reduce funds for other signings. so nothing to be happy about in this really.
Not cool, injury gods.
You were all calling for his head last week against Besiktas, saying he wasn’t up to Arsenal standards. You’re all quick to take that back after 45 minutes against Everton. Football fans are so fickle, make up your minds, yeah?
Replying to the wrong post mate, I never said anything of the sort.
I think the phrase ryhmes with “clucking bell”.
Don’t worry, Arsene has a cunning plan.
The problem is our finances can probably only stretch to one ‘marquee’ signing per year, and that was Alexis. We are probably looking at £15m tops for each player. Hope to be proved wrong
There’s plenty of money left in the coffers. We got money from Verm, Fabregas and Vela and have probably saved some from the players who left on a free.
The money excuse is not valid anymore.
it is with FFP. You can’t keep posting losses and Arsenal will be with another marquee signing.
Arsenal haven’t been posting losses and is far away from having problem with FFP. It’s no excuse not to spend.
You won’t. Because the income from transfers comes in a lump sum while player purchases are amortised.
I was laughing my arse off when I saw that United got battered by MK Dons, then I heard this and now I’m worried for our season. If we don’t sign a striker then I think we should play 2 up top, I don’t believe any of our other strikers are capable of holding up or winning balls in the air like Giroud does, so a change of formation is required. I don’t really like Giroud but he’s the best cf at this club and he’s underrated in some aspects. Maybe we can go back to the 07/08 team or… Read more »
Yelp. So sad for the guy. Logic states if we have good striker, its bound to happen.
Genuinely gutted.
One week left Wenger..go for it. Excite us!
Forces us to do what we should have been doing anyway I suppose.
Just this late isn’t ideal for prices. I knew we’d get our deadline day trolley dash 🙂
Sorry for Giroud as a person.Happy for us not having to play him and possibly get a new striker
which would mean less money for other signings, genius
Jesus wept what the fuck!
A shame that it might take an injury to one of our key players for us to make that forward signing.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
On the bright side, come the January window… LANS!
And given that Poldi was almost out the door, surely he qualifies as LANS…
Only comment so far that made me smile. Cheers.
For fucks sake.
Falcao. We need to blow the budget and get him. Fuck stop gaps and all that. Spend once. Spend right. He’s available, Monaco want him off the books, we have the cash, just get him already.
like Alan Davies says, you buy cheap – you buy twice
Shame we have already spent all our money. Plus, we’ve added 30 million to the wage bill this summer, not a hope are we going to take on someone like Falcao who is probably earning double what our highest earner makes.
£30 million on the wage bill?!? Are you trying to tell me, Arsenal are paying Alexis, Chambers, Debuchy and Ospina a additional £30m a year more than we paid Vermaelen, Bendtner, Park, Fabianski and Sagna? That’s about £150,000 a week each MORE in addition to what those guys got paid which conservatively averages out at about £50,000 a week each, which would put our new signings on a average £10m year. Sounds like nonsense to me.
The obvious flaw in Alan Davies’s argument is that buying twice means you have two players rather than one. You can’t go through a whole league season with only 11 players in your squad.
They want 20m for a season-long loan. Falcao won’t come at all cheap.
We should just recall Afobe, given what he just did to Manure, congratulate him and then den him back out on loan and get Cavani, or is that asking for too much. In any case this is all john Terry’s fault.
We need a defender an DM more i think.
We have people that can play there. Quality people.
Maybe a 442 though as individualy they may not be suited to it but any combination of our current options would be a handful.
Bring back Gus Ceasar.
How can you play him more than any other player (bar merts) and not expect this eventually ? Hope Shad gives Wenger a lil bitch slap
It had nothing to do with how often he was played. It’s a freakish, unlucky injury.
Fatigue affects people in many different ways. I very much doubt it’s the direct cause of his injury, but it certainly won’t have helped
have to agree there. he’s been played non-stop, with some cameos for france. not the cause of this injury but playing that much leaves you vulnerable.
Oh, come on. It was a freak impact injury. Would you use fatigue as the explanation for someone getting Shawcrossed?
Yeah yeah, Giroud was fatigue because he played only 1 full match out of 3 this season.
Guys this panic attack has caused your brains to go south….
In the world of body science nothing is a freak accident..its mostly due to a particulae muscle/tendon not responding in time…main cause of this in almost alll cases is fatigue of some form..sometimes even mental..so i have to disagree with you here arseblog here
YES, you can be too tired to get out of an idiot whos aiming for you’s way,or do you think that a years amount of new pressure on a body cannot be effected like this,Giraud’s body is prob in shock after that season,im in shock that its now that we start looking for a striker,how many years now?
Not Welbeck. For the love of Christ, not Welbeck.
I have given that guy waaaay to much shit in front of my Man U friends and if we end up signing him i dont know if i could take it
We have loosing a player in every game! Can’t afford it any more.
Shad please work your magic soon.
Llorente??? It’s not like jube need all those strikers..
Too bad we’ll miss the HFB, get well soon. N’ways this break will give him more time to bang the models, he’s got to utilie the HFB tag after all.
Giroud is the only forward in his mould we have isn’t he? Big fella holds the ball up – suits our style of play, etc etc etc. Surely we should have another forward in a similar mould anyway, TGSTEL was capable of it (not suggesting he should have stayed) but if none of the others are, we’d instantly struggle to play our game as soon as G was out – therefore needed one anyway. I’ve got some pride that we don’t just buy our way up the table, but Liverpool and Everton appear to know the deal – I’d like… Read more »
Only say Bony cos I don’t think we’ll buy Cavani for that sort of money. Could hopefully then spend the remainder on a CB then DM.
Well that escalated quickly
To the “blessing in disguise” brigade – hang your heads in shame.
The blessing in disguise crowd need to be split into two categories. There are those who dislike Giroud and are just relieved as they don’t particularly rate him. And there are those, like myself, who thought the timing of the injury rather than the injury itself was a blessing in disguise insofar as it gave us time to address the issue before the window closed. The severity of the injury almost further emphasises the point, as if this had happened next week.. But we’ve been lumped in with the former group like it were nothing, reputations in tatters, lives ruined.… Read more »
Cat 3,
the ones who know wenger prob would never go in the market unless this happened
Pretty sure that’s the same as Cat 1.
Sooo Afobe really did a job against United huh…
United have broken the british transfer record to sign a player from Mordor who does not even fit in a 3-5-2 formation, a formation that Van Gaal played throughout pre season, despite knowing that the squad he had did not suit that formation, it honestly could be worse arsenal fans. Still, I am genuinely concerned about our lack of options running through the “spine” of the team. We need a centre back who, perhaps may not challenge the mertescielny axis, but will at least provide reliable back up, and thumb me down all you like but Micah Richards and Wiston… Read more »
i’ve got nothing but north facing thumbs for this
Great comment. If we are being realistic we should sign:
Reid/Nastasic
Carvalho
Falcao
I know its very fanciful but with that we have a serious chance of winning the leauge and i am not just saying that cos im being bias.
carvalho and falcao as ‘realistic’? try neither. carvalho won’t come cheap as the portuguese clubs really set prices inflexibly high (and why shouldn’t they, honestly). monaco are apparently asking for 20m for a season-long loan of falcao. so no, not realistic at all.
I genuinely think that Calum Chambers is that CB that we want. Young enough that not playing every game won’t make him want to leave and has enough potential that he can grow exponentially for us this season. If we buy another CB that will block him it will just impede his growth. I think we should be okay as long as we keep Miquel for cup games. Rotate Chambers in as needed and let him grow this season. Both Mert and Kos are good enough to help cover up any deficiencies he might show as well as showing him… Read more »
I think you’re right, he really is showing signs of something incredible. However we are still only one injury/ban/drop in form away from having no backup. could be a little more secure with one more signing really. If chambers is covering in the middle and Debuchy takes a knock we are in trouble. same on the left also, with Gibbs out at the moment, one knock or ban for Monreal and we are suddenly forced to “get creative”. Whereas before Vermaelen would have slotted in there and done a job. In my opinion, we need another, and I would speculate… Read more »
I’m bracing myself for the countless ‘preparing a bid’ stories for every second rate striker in Europe… Any second now.
Falcao is the man! Must buy TOP CLASS DMF & CF #COYG
Finally, Bloggs points out what people have been thumbed down for saying on this site. The spine has not been renewed this year (unless Alexis counts as your out and out striker and the team changes formation for that, which it has not so far). Everyone else signed so far replaced a player leaving. We essentially treaded water to stay afloat because it was necessary (although it must be noted that in Ospina we really upgraded as well, at least on the face of it). One hopes that Wenger does not truly believe that being top for many days last… Read more »
Alright, I’ll take the bait… You’re engaging in revisionist history.. First of all, people get thumbed up and thumbed down on this site for saying all sorts of things. Next, “bloggs” did not just confirm what you are implying keeps getting you thumbed down…some breaking news, no pun intended, just made it pretty obvious that an additional striker would be very welcome now (my preference would be Cavani or Falcao or Bony if the other two aren’t feasible)…but before Giroud got hurt, there was a “contingent” of people shall we say who would go on and on and on and… Read more »
Now the shit has hit the fan.
Feckin feck.
If Wenger decides not t spend and decides to give Sanogo a chance, then I am gonna have to say he’s a stubborn fool. Not yet though.. I don’t hate the kid but he’s still raw. If you are offended then keep scrolling!
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
This is getting silly. Season after season ruined by injuries. Can’t we be lucky soon?
Did the boss say this about 10 months ago referring to Giroud being injured, after he signed Ozil?
“I do not know if we will strengthen this winter. Honestly, I want to see where we are at the end of December. And then we have Bendtner , Park. We have many solutions. Even Mesut Ozil has played there before.”
So could he move Ozil forward, maybe next to Pod, when he doesn’t want to play Alexis?
We may have to go back to how we used to play again in the Henry years and not with a target man striker.
We did it ok then, we may have to learn how to do it again …
Crumbs why does this happen to arsenal players!!! Eduardo, diaby, Wilshire, giroud, Walcott, Ramsey, the list goes on irritatingly
Oh FFS.
I really want to write more about how it will all be ok and that great striking signing is just round the corner but all I have is oh FFS.
Regardless of ‘form’, injuries have screwed this Club for the last six years – even more so than other teams, who as we all know also suffer ‘injuries’.
But nothing like this mob.
We need a CD. We also need a DM. We can’t and won’t get those, as well as a new forward.
Words fail me. The season is 2 league games old and we are at the point where many would consider it bad luck if it were in March !!!!!!
Maybe Sanogo can do the business…………?
Giroud is not a top quality striker, watch out out Campell he is going to be top quality striker
He will surely be missed for the Beauty (in appearance) he adds to the squad every matchday!.Sincerely,I am not even staking my shit that Arsene is gonna buy a new CF,And I won’t feel any more miserable if we don’t.#My ArsENaL,My PriDE#
I knew it was a mistake to get rid of Park!
We need three players to compete, I think that’s fairly well accepted. If we got more than one I’d be surprised, if we got two I’d be reasonably happy. We’re not going to get three, not a chance.
One thing’s for sure, the match tomorrow is absolutely vital.
Carvalho and cavani…problem solved 🙂
Can Cavani play central defense? No.. well problem not solved then is it.
Carvalho has though. Not often, but it’s an option.
if only. think arsenal is willing to spend 80m more on transfers AND carry cavani’s ridiculous wages?
poop dick.
It was Shad Forsythe we brought in wasn’t it, not Bruce…?