Laurent Koscielny’s chronic ankle tendinitis means he’s likely to spend another month on the sidelines.
The French international hasn’t featured for the Gunners since the defeat at Chelsea on 5 October and Arsene Wenger says he’s not expecting to see the centre-back back in action until late November.
The Gunners face Sunderland, Burnley, Anderlecht and Swansea City in that time before taking on Manchester United on 22 November after the international break.
Speaking at his weekly press conference ahead of the trip to the Stadium of Light, the boss revealed:
“I cannot give you any date because we go day by day with him. He may be available after the next international break.”
Given the nature of the problem Arsenal aren’t considering surgery at this point – we’d probably amputate his arms by accident – but it’s clear this is going to be an ongoing problem that could well have long-term implications for the Mertescielny ‘axis of awesome’.
Nacho Monreal has been selected to play in the centre of the defence for the last two games and it’s pretty obvious he’s not comfortable there. Calum Chambers is the other viable option, except that means playing Hector Bellerin at right-back. Two teenagers in an already shaky backline is a obviously a risk.
We’re in a pickle. A pickle that was oh so predictable…
Well, this thing is becoming a bit ridiculous… Get well soon Laurent!
Luckily we bought that experienced CB who can easily slot in until he is back.
Oh, wait…
Vermaelen would be handy right now! Oh, wait.. He’s injured.
…and don’t forget, he is a Barcelona player now. You missed that.
…he hasn’t played a league game for Barcelona yet. It’s a shame because he was no longer first choice for Arsenal or his national team. At Barcelona when he is fit he will not be their first choice centre half. It’s easy to lament the fact that he is no longer with us but it would have been damaging for him if Chambers was picked ahead of him
What we should have done was to invest in some decent donuts, Not the really greasy, heavy, cloyingly sweet ones, no! (dammit) Im talking about the melt-in-your-mouth, stuffed with real jam, lick the fingers type ones. Stan knows. His office is right across from this guy who I have that carpool with. Well, sometimes we see Stan grabbing a coffee from the machine in the hall near the ficus and Id be a liar if I said he doesn’t often have powdered sugar wiped down his pants.
He can be such a pig.
It is a bad thing to find ourselves in this mess. Arsene will have to take the blame 100%.
it’s exactly the same situation that we’d be in had TV5 stayed
Just saying
How about buying a defender?
Kos had the injury when he was away at the WC. It was well known and chronic. This was entirely foreseeable. Entirely. It would actually have been surprising had it not gotten worse. Decision-making over transfers has to be taken out of Wenger’s hands. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Face palm…….
surprise, surprise
We’ve needed a new CB for 18 month’s or more, as last year we only had Verm and Sagna for backup, that we lost those two players and only brought in Chambers (as CB cover), is unbelievable.
Tendinitis is never a quick healer. Didn’t Nadal miss a year of tennis due to tendinitis in his knee?
Koscielny was forced to play through pain at the start of the season, as no adequate back up cover. That quite possibly made it worse.
Crap. I miss Jenkinson already. Well, at least he’s in better position than us.
He is doing so well with Westham!
From what I’ve seen he really looks to take responsibility in games and tends to be one of their main threats going forward
I will hold Wenger accountable if he knew that Koscielny had this injury before the transfer window shut down. If otherwise I don’t think there were more suitable candidates to replace Vermaelen. Chambers is a pretty good gamble for a third choice centreback. Let’s face it, there’s a reason why Vermaelen left, the Mertescielny partnership was the reason why he left. They were best defenders last season in PL barring those catastrophes in the big games. What defender wants to sit on the bench regularly? Probably a talented young defender like Chambers. I can’t blame Wenger for not bringing another… Read more »
I can blame him, 3 players to cover 2 positions for an entire season and bearing in mind Chambers covers right back as well, which is why we are playing Bellerin there.
TV5 would make no difference as he’s injured, I cannot believe the club couldn’t find a suitable CB, plenty of defenders moved during the summer, surely one of them would have been better than nobody at all.
I have written of this season already.
What did you write about it?
Such a shame, but it was always going to happen to either him or Mert and punish us. Wenger’s fault for not buying a CB; how the hell could he be so stupid?
Diego Lugano is available as a free agent. I think he wud be a good short term solution. Wud provide experience. Tho, one drawback wud be speed as himself and BFG may get caught out. So predictable. This is the situation we find ourselves in so we have to make the best if it until jan, or when Kos is back.
If Wenger doesn’t see a good cb coming in January at the right price then Lugano would be better
than nothing. However, if we are aiming to get that defensive mid (1st priority imo) and a proper
cb so that Chambers isn’t covering 2 spots then picking up Lugano now would not be the right
decision factoring in the rest of the year.
Hopefully Bellerin comes in and Chambers goes in the middle. If not I’d like to see Hayden get a run out. If at least one youngster can gain vital experience to make the step up there might be a tiny silver lining from this injury crisis.
Wenger was never shy to throw on a youngster so I feel that they’re probably not ready for PL/CL games.
I don’t think AWs thrown many young CBs on except to gain experience as FBs. It’s quite a pivotal position where a youngsters little mistake results in a goal against much more often than any other position (in GK). I’m surprised AW hasn’t had Hayden & Ajayi on the bench more often with the aim of ‘last 10 minutes as FB’ experience, but I guess that plan would go on the back-burner until the team starts playing like a team and looks comfortable.
Getting through last season with PM4 and LK6 was a sketchy miracle.
Do expect it to happen again is foolish. We should have bought cover before releasing TV5. Even if the money paid for him was massive, it’s more valuable to have a full starting 11 rather than a makeshift one. Which we seem to like doing these past few years.
So you think we should have kept TV5 which would have put us in exactly the same position we are in now except we’d have another CB (TV5) in the treatment room.
Happy Retirement Kos…. You were good once…
God forbid but can you imagine what will happen if BFG is injured while Kos is out? Ohh the horror…
I think my brain had refused to consider this proposition. ONE of our CB’s out injured was a horrible enough thought.. but a back four of Bellerin, Chambers, Monreal and Gibbs is enough to give me a panic attack.
Bloody annoying!!!!
Well Thanks for your career with us. If we have identified it as Tendinitis … then it will be definitely ebola of the tendons and he will end up in a home soon.
Arsenal: you’re fired.
We look like a right bunch of cunts for not buying another centre back
After last seasons miracle and our annual injury problems,anyone could have predicted our CB problems,anyone except……..
(thinks back to when RVP was perennially injured)
“After last seasons striker injury problems anyone could have predicted not buying in jan would be disastrous,anyone except”
Common denominator ?
hahahaha haha ha ha h he hehe *starts crying*
Oh, so unpredictable. We have real 2CB and no substitute. Maybe it would make sense to put get someone… Even just for keeping pressure on players… Inside competition for players to stay competitive. Wenger always told he hated the january transfert market, because quality players were would cost far more or would be hard to find. He was right. So ? I have read someone suggested Lugano. Seriously ? Have you see him played with. PSG ? No ? Well, it is because he was really really bad when he had few opportunities. If you want to avoid Sylvestre/Squillaci/Cygan mistakes,bit… Read more »
It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad. The middle of October and our season aready looks shafted. I was watching the game v Anderlecht on Wednesday and I couldn’t help but feel just apathetic. We were so bad that it was almost embarrassing. After being outplayed for 88 minutes by a pub team, we nicked two lucky goals and won a game in which we deservered to be well beaten. It was comical. I just laughed when that Podolski goal went in. As soon as we come up against a top side in the Champions’ League they… Read more »
Actually we’ve done well against top opponents so far this year. The only time we didn’t show up was against Borussia (which Wednesday’s game was pretty similar to :/ ). The rest of the time we have defended well for most of the 90. It’s just that each time we don’t defend, we can’t catch a break and when we manage to break the other team down, we don’t make the chance count. There’s plenty of time in the season to make adjustments and get our game on. 1 or 2 purchases (max) this January and we can get cover… Read more »
I have been very pro-wenger but I think options need to be looked at soon, competition for places needs to start at the top down. Not Wenger out but he should be feeling a little note heat with the money spent.
You know sometimes I think the real Arsené Wenger was abducted by aliens in 2005 and the Wenger we see right now is an imposter… Can’t believe that this is the same guy making baffling descisions and team choices over and over again… it’s depressing. 🙁
It doesn’t help but I do wonder why no journalists have asked Wenger whether he regrets letting Jenkinson leave on loan.
I suspect they don’t ask because the answer is so obvious……………..
My name says a thousand words! I can’t believe we didn’t buy another defender or two and Defencive midfielder, its far past the farcical point it’s starting to become an utter joke.
You think about it 10 years ago we had so much power and leadership in the team and now we don’t have a single player surely wenger can see it but why does he do nothing about it, it’s almost like he has run out of ideas.
I heard due to remedial works being undertaken by the club at the training grounds, the entire playing and back room staff passed under a ladder placed along the passage used to fix light bulbs. Well you know, as they say, the rest is history…
Everyone seems to keep blaming AW because Sagna and Vermaelen left and he didn’t bring in new people. I guess Debucchy and Chambers don’t exist. What was AW supposed to do? Count on two of our DBs getting seriously injured and finding two top notch stars to come to Arsenal and sit on the bench because THEY KNEW THERE WOULD BE THE INJURIES.Let’s get real. Why doesn’t AW just purchase all these great stars for extras in case of injuries.No problem. Really? Look, injuries suck but you just can’t overstock the team with stars willing to wait for the injuries… Read more »
You are missing the point, Chambers and Debuchy replacements for outgoing players. However we were already short of defenders at that point, we needed more than replacements.
Numbers- and quality-wise, we have proper cover at fullback (There are 5 players for that). The problem was letting Verm and Miguel go without finding replacements because it meant that if Mertescielny had a problem, there would be no one in the squad who had ever played cb at the senior level (for us or any other top team). We now actually have adequate cover in the team everywhere except at cb and cdm. Sure it took Giroud’s injury to get Welbeck, but we are now well everywhere else, but horrid at those two spots. Oh, and “fugetaboudit”, Chelsea fans… Read more »
Wenger gets a lot of unjustified criticism in some situations. This is not one of those situations.
So we can expect him out till new year the new …
Not to worry, he will be yes you guessed it LANS 🙂
Just as well because do you really think we will add to the squad in January. I expect the *quality will not be available* or some other patronising bullshit excuse …
Those saying that Wenger has just been unlucky are a very understanding bunch. Wenger not only let TV go this summer, he let Sagna go. Sagna was an excellent ‘backup’ CB, in fact I believe he could move into the middle and play there as his main position in a year or so’s time when (maybe) he cant get up the pitch so much. TV was always going, nothing against AW for ‘letting him go to play games’ but to not get at least one ‘experienced’ CB in to replace two is weird??? I would hazard a guess that something… Read more »
Couldnt we just play Nacho at RB and Chambers at CB? Not ideal but better than the other way around surely
Gone past the point of giving a shit.
For what’s is worth. I’m a pro Wenger to a fault, but I can’t help but blame him over the current injury woes at the back.
Even the dumbest blind man on earth could predict easily what’ll become of Arsenal’s defence if injury were to struck from the beginning of the season.
For whatever reason, for God know what, Wenger seems to think otherwise.
I just can’t understand!
And you don’t think he was looking for a quality CB over the summer?
Can’t we recall Jenko?
Then we can play Chambers and Mert as CB
There is this novel thing, and maybe best sit down here, that other clubs do
They only sell players once they have a replacement
Crazy I know
Hands up everyone that thinks we should have held onto TV5 (who’s been injured all this season so we’d be in exactly the same position!)?
Hands up anyone that is dumb enough to think AW wasn’t looking for another CB?
Hands up anyone that thinks he’s have been better buying an ‘adequate’ CB rather than waiting for a ‘top quality’ CB? wow, My hand went up on this one…..
Fugetabputit Now where to start. We replaced a rb/cb and a cb with a rb and a rb/cb. See the difference? We were already short at cb and even more so. With the injury record we have its only professional to cover the eventuality that our over dependence on 2 would lead to injury. It strikes me of trying to do it on the cheap. You know the price pay it. Imo per isn’t good enough he’s meant to be a leader he’s been shit. Against Hull if you think they aren’t attacking well tell them. Mix it up your… Read more »
If Cahill wore an Arsenal Shirt the refs would have a field day with him. He’s have seen more red cards than Rymans. But he would probably be worth considering if he was any good as a defender rather than a professional fouler.
i feel like it would make a lot more sense to play monreal at right back and chambers in the middle rather than the other way around, if the issue is wegner not fully trusting bellerin yet. just a thought
Fucking Midi-chlorians!
Bellerin must start as RB as Chambers had a ‘mare in the CL. We need to get some consistency but! There is no-one to adequately replace Kos. I dont feel confident with either Chambers or Monreal. Can Hayden play there? This is not a situation a CL club should be in. Just comical laughing with tears. Steve Bould is probably still the best choice and Pat Rice at right back. No wonder I call myself Forfuckssake!