Mesut Ozil has taken part in a full training session ahead of Arsenal’s clash with Manchester City on Saturday suggesting he’s overcome the ankle knock picked up in the dying moments at Leicester.
The World Cup winner was on the bench as Germany slumped to a 4-2 defeat against Argentina a week ago and wasn’t selected at all for the 2-1 Euro 2016 qualifier victory over Scotland on Saturday with Joachim Loew treating the midfielder with caution after his stunted pre-season preparations.
Ozil was joined in the session at London Colney by Colombian keeper David Ospina who is expected to take a position on the Gunners bench for the first time since signing from Nice. The 26-year-old has finally overcome a hamstring problem picked up at the World Cup and played a full 90 minutes for his country in Miami as they went down 1-0 against Brazil.
In further positive news, Mikel Arteta is also fit having fully recovered from the ankle twist sustained in the first-leg of the Gunners Champions League double-header with Besiktas. Aaron Ramsey has also hinted he’ll be alright for the weekend after twisting his ankle against Andorra on their shoddy 3G astro pitch.
Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Calum Chambers and new boy Danny Welbeck will return to training tomorrow having been given 24 hours off after England’s 2-0 victory over Switzerland while Tomas Rosicky and Yaya Sanogo should also be involved. Alexis Sanchez, who played 86 minutes last night for Chile against Haiti in the USA, is set to take part in Friday’s session.
One man who is out for the long-term is Olivier Giroud, although close mate Laurent Koscielny believes the striker will come back even stronger in the New Year.
“When you are injured for three, four or five months, the most difficult thing is to keep motivated and be happy enough to come back,” Koscielny told Arsenal Player. “Some days you could just say I don’t want to come back – I can’t arrive this week. We need to be with him.
“He knows all of the players are with him, and we are behind him to help him to come back quickly, stronger, because we need to play with him to score a lot of goals. I think he will be very important for us in the last six months of the season.”
Lord bless the Arsenal. #COYG
He sent us his Welsh Son
what about gibbs?
We need all of our best players fit and bang up for this game. This is the first big test of the season, this is a really key match, psychologically getting a positive result on Saturday is paramount. At home we should always aim to win, but I also think it would be really important for us to get at least a point, we cant afford to be on the receiving end of another panning this early on in the season. If we want to win the title this season, then getting a result against the current Champions is a… Read more »
Agree mate – crucial game. And my first visit to the Emirates this season! (share a season ticket 50/50 with a mate). Cannot wait to see Welbeck and Alexis in real life in the Gooners strip. Got a good feeling about the match and fancy Welbeck to get a couple.
COYG!!!!
Good to have ozil fit for the mancity game. I hope wenger plays him centrally. Turn up mesut! We are overdue a good game from him.
We’re due a big match performance from him. He used to rip up Barca, and he’ll deliver against City on Saturday.
Completely agree. We haven’t hit any sort of form over the past 4 games I expect Wenger to get it right this time. And what a statement that would be. To be frank I still worry about Chelsea more than I do City, as Pellegrini loves the open game. Mourinho on the other hand parks the bus, and hopes our midfield lose possession to hit us on the counter, and then he’d go off celebrating like it’s some sort of genius winning games through a mistake by the opponent, the fucker. But a win against City nontheless would put us… Read more »
He won’t have to park the bus against us, we’ll get ripped apart with Costa facing Mertesacker/Arteta marking him
We very rarely put Mert or Arteta to mark the opponents top striker. Don’t worry, Kos will have him in his pocket as usual.
Very good news all round! Come Saturday, all be ready!
COYG!!!!!!
Well, let’s hope we’re all ready but, as the Mail points out (complete with six pages of pics) Welbeck hasn’t yet got an ARSENAL WASHBAG.
Apparently he’s agitating for a £35m move back to Old Trafford
I want kisses this weekend!!!
Seems like good news all round, except for HFB of course.
Good news! We face Dortmund away right after the City match, so we really need all our best players available. Winning both of those matches would be massive.
tanzanian?
Feeling confident about Saturday… Hopefully we can really kick start our season!
What a pleasant read. Thanks Mr Blog
German Jesus. Turkish Jesus. Gerkish Jesus….or something
sudden urge for quality gherkins…….
Top, top, top quality gherkins
I’m glad the signings of Sanchez, Welbeck etc have taken the spotlight off Özil somewhat for the time being, despite what the papers would have you believe I still think he is by some distance the most talented player in our squad. If he can knuckle down and exert a similar influence on our play to what Silva does for City, we have a very high ceiling as a team. I think te quality of the number 10 is very important in transcending “very good” to become a “great” team, good to know we have that position under control with… Read more »
COYG!!!
I want to win this so badly just beat these money grabbers!
Ozil fit, Arteta back, Ramsey is fine and now with Walcott returning there is quite a bit to be excited about this team. We rolled over the Champions in Community Shield quite comfortably. That should get rid of the mental block of big occasion.
John Terry is a cunt. #neverforget
he owes us a performance. but the script is written for danny welbeck to have something to say on saturday afternoon.
City we are waiting for you..get ready to be spanked
Hah, as I read this the thumbs count was 6-3 to the good! Come on Gunners, let’s win this by a tennis score!
Confidence is in the air
Any word on Diaby?
Thought I read somewhere that he recently played 45 minutes or so for the under-21s.
Is he fit or what?
Diaby is one of the best midfielder in the world (hope he stay fit )
That’s comedy gold right there!
Must of been the headed goal vs Man Utd.
Do you watch football ?
Hope we can get a win vs city. A draw result wont be so bad if they get nasri sent off. 🙂
King of assists ready to feed Danny n Alexis like roman emperor and his wife been fed grapes…I love it…
Our new physio must be Into some black magic to possibly have everyone fit after a international break. Going fuckin great guns
about time Shad got a positive mention!
Very positive news before the City game. COYG.
What about Gibbs? Any new on him ?
Our gunner among the injury gods has finally graduated from academy
Welldone shady!
What about Arsene? Is he fit to talk yet?
well written article and nice positive comments from fellow gunners. my apologies to Houstongooner, i wanted to like your comment but accidentally thumbed you down, sorry mate.
So i dreamt we win on saturday 2-1. Will goals from Welbeck and a Ozil. And Szcezney sucker punched Yaya Toure because why the hell not.
I would prefer if he did that to Nasri. Then we can bring Flamini on in the last five minutes to Flaminate him as well.
All the pitches in America are going towards the astro turf shite. Seems there are no good grounds keepers any more.
I even effed up my knee ligaments on the artificial rubber turf in my playing days. The surface plain sucks.
Wrong article :/
Cue sigh of relief among goonerdom!
I saw stats somewhere on twitter. Ozil was responsible in creating 76 chances, most for any player since he has been here. Next one is Giroud, I think he had 42 or something. Ozil is so underrated.
Ozil gets the ball…..Ozil passes… Oh No Theres a race between Walcott Alexis and Welbeck to get to the ball..The Centre Backs are out of the Camera Focus………Hahhahahah waitin for that,,, #coyg
Please don’t start with that pretentious I’ll-insert-an-un-necessary-‘e’-in-German-words-because-I-know-better-than-everyone-else nonsense, please! Joachim Löw or Low. No one types Oezil (ok, almost no one).
Rant over, thanks. 😀
The zeal in Ozil’s eyes seem more apparent this season, he seems much happier than last season and is repping Arsenal more and more on social media (twitter bio) only a matter of time before he repays Arsene’s faith in him.
#ShadOut! Oh wait, that was largely good news on that front… #ShadIIIINNNN!! 🙂
Come on boys please kick city’s arse all the way back to scumbag land
Great news indeed.
Both Ozil and Arteta fit. Possibly Ramsey too.
Some tough decisions for Wenger.
Alexis likely out RW. Welbeck up top.
But does he go for the energy of Jack and Ramsey in front of Arteta (or Flamini)
or does he put Ozil in the slot (or Santi?)
He also has to decide on Santi wide left (switching with Ozil) or maybe Podolski or Ox (likely later for a direct approach). And there’s also Campbell and Sanogo late on perhaps.
Good headache to have.
Big up to Shad!! … as he may as well take the credit for players recovering, as well as taking criticism for players being injured due to acts of Gods!
Funny old job must be, to be the fitness coach! 🙂
What about Ramsey? Is he fit for the city game?
I dreamt Welbeck scored with his first touch after coming on as a sub,Ozil with an assist like the one he assisted Flamini against swansea
good news for the gunners.