Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Laurent Koscielny will not be available on Saturday for the visit of Hull.
The centre-back reported for international duty with France after the defeat to Chelsea but was promptly sent back to London due to discomfort caused by chronic tendinitis in his ankles.
The boss insists that the 29-year-old does not require surgery but it still highlights our dearth of options in the centre of defence.
Calum Chambers, our back-up in the middle, is suspended this weekend meaning Nacho Monreal will likely partner Per Mertesacker flanked by Kieran Gibbs and Hector Bellerin.
In better news Tomas Rosicky will be fit for Saturday (kick playing for Czech Republic) and Aaron Ramsey will be part of the squad that travels to Brussels to play Anderlecht next Wednesday.
Wenger also took the opportunity to dismiss stories circling that he’d continue to field Mesut Ozil even though the player had told him he was injured at Stamford Bridge.
“He didn’t tell me anything during the game. I didn’t even know. At half-time, the physio told me he has a little pain in his knee, but it his not bad. He wanted to go on.”
Then it leaves us to conclude that the article from BeIN sports is full of shit.
Are you saying that an article by a sports journalist about Arsenal is all bollocks?
You’ll be trying to convince me that the Pope’s Catholic next.
Sometimes I wonder…
“He didn’t tell me anything during the game. I didn’t even know. At half-time, the physio told me he has a little pain in his knee, but it his not bad. He wanted to go on.”
Sounds rather that Ozil did not tell him, but the physio did. In any case, given his performance and Wenger knowing he had some pain in his knee, at half time, why did he leave him on and sub the better Cazorla?
” At half-time, the physio told me he has a little pain in his knee, but it is not bad.”
Did you read the fucking article?
Coming over for the game this weekend. better pack my boots! Might need to play centre-half! In all seriousness though, should we give Hayden a go rather than Monreal at centre-back?
I really feel Hayden should get the nod. The kids full of energy and gave a solid performance in the Captial One Cup. Monreal might do the job too but I’m just concerned if he suddenly starts to feel “strange” during a counter-attack or set-piece
Yeah Racerr, I agree. Hayden gave a good performance in the Capital one cup. My only worry is that Hayden and Bellerin are both reletively inexperienced at this level. However, both have shown potential when given the chance and if they can step-up like Chambers has done, I htink its a better choice than playing a makeshift centre-half. Its just a pity we cant recall Jenks, though I think he injured at the mintue anyway. Think I heard he came back from u21 duty with a dodgy hamstring.
I agree, I would like to see Hayden get the start. With Per’s guidance, I think he will do well, and what happens if Gibbs or Nacho gets hurt ?
Per has such sick leadership skills that he could probably get a performance out of Titus Bramble. Monreal looks well under 6 foot though, set pieces are going to be heart in mouth affairs I fear. I still think we’ll have enough to win comfortably but this really is a farcical situation, even by our standards. Damn lucky it’s Hull at home.
Transfermarkt says Monreal is 1.79m which is roughly 5ft 10.5 inches
We knew about Koscielny’s achilles problem IN AUGUST ffs.
“Hey what if Kos’ injury gets serious or even takes more time than we expect?”
“With our injury record? Nah, let’s gamble it and see how it goes”
“But shouldn’t we look for another CB at least?”
“Why? Monreal can play there, Arteta can play there, Bould used to play there, Sanogo can, Gunnersaurus too.”
I’d quite like to see Gunnersaurus get a run out. He’s rubbish in goal though, I’ve seen kids take penalties against him and he never saves them.
Gunnersaurus is more of a DM than a CB
Gunnersaurus is the 2m tall, 150 kg mythical beast of a dm we had been looking for
I say we convert him to a full back…
monster, monster
and Kos is 29 already…I didn’t realize both CBs were creeping up on 30 already…
wtf is with Chambers getting all these yellows ? surely he is hanging around with Flamini
He’s young so hes overly enthusiastic he is like a younger version of Koscielny in a few years as he matures he could become top class
Has Koscielny actually matured?
Don’t get me wrong he is one of the best defenders in the league but he has many lapses where he gives away needless penalties, free kicks & red cards.
And to be fair, some of them weren’t even fouls, let alone yellows.
I’m numbed beyond words
Gazidis or Kroenke sound like a good option?
Honestly I think we tried to sign a CB and couldn’t get what we wanted. So thought our reserve fullbacks and Hayden are better options than Silvestre, Squid type players.
I agree with either getting top quality or promoting. Even shit players cost £3m+ and take £40K a week and you are stuck with them like we were with Park.
Agreed. which is why I hope we go with Hayden. Hopefully Wenger thinks he’s ready. id rather a youth player with potential and give him his chance than a makeshift centre half. no offense to monreal.
Ah, the voice of reason.
What are you doing on the internet?
So our defensive options on the bench will be Flamini, coq, and/or hayden. Fingers crossed they remain there throughout.
we had better have a damn good january, and i mean jan 1st 3 sign
Diaby to play CB! He’s tall, strong, perfect attributes for a CB…
In all seriousness though, I agree with above posters regarding giving Hayden a chance. He’s been playing well for the U21s, and played well in the COC. And unlike Monreal, he’s a proper centre half
As far as I can tell, Half Time IS during the game. Finding that AW frequently contradicts himself these days
so its not taken long for Wengers failings in crucial signings to bite us in the ARSE……. with our previous injury record let alone this years so far he didnt go that extra mile for the back up CB, ( or DM ) and knowing Kos has carried the Bad Wammy or two since August still played him, is wenger over ruling the medical team or are they just incompetent, if we win or even draw he will justify it but if we fail against Hull…. Well Twitter explosion and so justified our failing are made of our own denials… Read more »
It still sounds like pure incompetence from the staff, including Wenger. Of course, Ozil the player will always wanted to play (as pointed by Mr Blog in the blogpost) and it depends on the medical staff including the manager to decide objectively. To think he subbed Cazorla who at that time our on form offensive player while fully knows Ozil had a knack and under-perform is beyond my understanding.
And now Koscielny. Blurgh.
“He didn’t tell me anything during the game. I didn’t even know. At half-time, the physio told me he has a little pain in his knee, but it his not bad. He wanted to go on.” 1) Ozil never said anything to Wenger at half time. 2) The physio told Wenger that Ozil had a small problem with his knee, but that he is fine to continue, and he wants to continue. 3) Wenger listens to what his physio tells him, and allows Ozil to play on. 4) “It still sounds like pure incompetence from the staff, including Wenger”. You’re… Read more »
Surprised that Ramsey will be back in the squad a week from now…wasn’t he meant to be out for around 6 weeks? If he’s fit enough to play, I’m thrilled, but it seems like we might be rushing him back too soon.
we would never rush someone back from injury too early….
Does this new arseblog news layout have a sarcasm font???
Perhaps it’s the magic Shad working his voodoo…
Well to be honest even if we had the whole squad fit, a defeat would cause twitter explosion, that’s Arsenal fans for you. i’m not defending Wenger, i love the man but he makes it really hard for people to defend him. the media loves bashing on Arsenal and Wenger is giving them reason to. if Ozil had a slight knock, why risk aggravating the knock? about not getting another defender i agree with the rest, we should have tried harder but i also understand that it isn’t as easy as most of us think to buy a player, a… Read more »
Ehhhmmmm no, its not a little bit of both. Arsenal for a while had to sell players first in order to create a transfer budget for the manager. Peter Hillwood admitted same in the agm meeting of 2010, where he also let another cat out the bag. The club was asking Wenger to produce a surplus of 25million per year for bank repayment schemes. If you combine these two you will note that the sales of Adebayor, Toure, Nasri etc coincided with that period and those restrictions. I find it extremely difficult to believe that Wenger/Arsenal had the financial ability… Read more »
Bravo, sir, bravo. A most excellent post.
Can we just cut and paste that post every time someone bleats about how we haven’t bought Messi, Ronaldo, Khedira, Carvalho, Pele, Eusebio, and two 6′ 73″ 290 lb centre halves who can run the 100m in four seconds flat?
Sadly, it still wouldn’t work.
And you forgot Reus.
Just copy/paste it & put it up on Untold, it’ll fit right in with the rest of the drivel you Kool-aid drinkers love to read
Irrespective of the injury, Ozil was playing bad enough to warrant the substitution.
To be fair he had two solid games prior to the Chelsea game and was injured during the first half of that game anyway. You’re right he should have been subbed, but not based on form, based on being injured.
Wonder who’s next? Maybe the BFG then we can have both CB out.
Flamini should start ahead of arteta, he had a good game v chelsea. Hayden to start also
True about Flamini over Arteta and I’d also love to see Hayden play, but to be perfectly honest I’d prefer to see Diaby rather than either Flamini or Arteta.
Hahahahahahahha, we actually talk about which one of Flamini or our “captain” Arteta should play the DM role…….great job there Arsene!!!!
Echo the call for Hayden. If his chance isn’t now, when is it? He wouldn’t have been brought into he first team squad if not to play at some point. BFG would see him right too.
Would really love him to kick on.
“The physio told him but he wanted to stay on” Madness. Ozil wasn’t even having a good game. He took off two uninjured players who arguably where playing better than Ozil and left an injured player on.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Kosc is 29? I could swear he was 27 a couple of months ago..
Without Kos and Chambers our defense will be threadbare. I’m not very confident of a positive result. Hull has big (size) players capable of troubling us on set pieces. Our midfield has to completely outplay theirs in order to get anything positive. Really farcical situation with our team.
You sound as if you doubt our midfield can. What’s wrong with you, man?
He’s analyzing our opponent……who have 3 big brutes with some decent skill in their MF, so it’ll def be a test for our current MF. We have the talent, but not as a unit right now….so a hyped-up Hull team that is averaging over 2 goals a match wont be a pushover. You’ve been listening to Wenger too much & think our players can just show up & win bc “it’s only Hull”……the same Hull that had all of us sh*tting a brick in the FA Cup Final for quite a while & had your Overlord Wenger thinking about retiring.… Read more »
Hope all those Hull City players are being fed the same grub given to their manager.
Chelsea game:
Wilshere: 1 key pass, 76% pass accuracy
Cazorla: 1 key pass, 86% pass accuracy
Özil: 3 key passes (Holy Cesch, 2), 82% pass accuracy. And he was injured.
Tell me who was the most efficient
+1 for Hayden
Wenger have some balls and play the kid, Gibbs will probably be injured again soon and then we’ll need monreal at LB. might as well get Hayden some experience now, we could need him in bigger games soon enough
Those Gunnersaurus comments made my day! Too good rofl XD XD
Strange and scary that our players are being sent home cos theyre unfit for international duty. WTF are our coaching/training staff doing. Surely they shouldnt have been sent and their problems diagnosed sfter our last game???
More highlighting our dodgy methods be it in training or physios. Bad shit
I get your point bc there is definitely a big problem with our fitness, BUT……. I’m pretty sure that if a player is called up by his National Team for duty them they are required by some law/contract to report or face disciplinary action. I remember a big fuss was made over a retired player being forced to report a few years back, only reason I know about it. Personally I think it makes the club look worse when the national teams are announcing our players injuries as soon as they arrive, just makes us look a bit more “Micky… Read more »
We might want to consider the fact that everybody plays physical against us as a factor in the injuries deartment. We hear it from every opposition manager every week. I think more steel is necessary, a player capable and willing to kick the shit out of the opposing team.
Maybe, but if you watch the refereeing, you see teams playing against us are allowed to make four or five fouls worthy of a card before they are actually booked, but the first time an Arsenal player commits a foul he gets carded. Just keep an eye out for it. If we bought a physical player he’d spend half the season suspended.
As Wenger has mentioned, we are likely looking toward Jan window for a Cback Wenger is not allergic to spending. Rather we have likely decided to take short term gamble at the back bc of who he may feel will come available in Jan Unlike most fans who can only see in front of their noses or repeat a name proffered by the facile media, Wenger likely has better market knowledge of movement and availability. It was similar to last Jan when there were calls for us to sign the mediocre Mitrogolou (ostensibly because he was fantastic in the mediocre… Read more »
Walcott and Ramsey coming back in are a big plus. Meanwhile, another beneficiary may be Ox who has continued to impress and will improve over a string of regular starts. Gnabry is also I believe on the mend. There may be limited opportunity for Diaby to play too. Its not all doom and gloom. The squad is not small. Where we are slightly short is at Cback. Otherwise there is sufficient depth throughout the squad albeit our injury issues need attending too. Hope we’re not paying Shad too much like KSE until we see a bit of results to his… Read more »
If you consider the above list : At CF, We are a bit short bc of Giroud and Sanogo. In both wing positions we have 2 out of 3 players available ditto at AM/Playmaker Full availability at CM with Ramsey returning. DM issue has been due to suspension but Arteta is back. In defende, at RB has been stretched BC of suspension (Calum). Cback was always a critical issue bc of one short (plus Calum suspension) which rotates Monreal infield. One of Coquelin or Flamini being back up to Gibbs. I don’t think we can fault depth in squad quanitity-wise… Read more »
I wouldn’t allocate the wingers to a side. Most can play on either wing but may have a tendency to ‘come inside’ when playing on their less favoured side. Similarly there is fair bit of overlap in the midfield. EG Arteta may not have the legs for AM or CM anymore but could probably cover there for 20-45 mins depending upon the opposition. Same can be said against certain opposition about CF. Alexis, Theo, Poldi and Campbell can cover there against a ‘positive’ team that may leave space for them. It’s only when the CF is playing back to goal… Read more »
came across this article on the internets – had to share.
Cult Heroes: Arsenal – John Jensen
http://www.punditarena.com/football/english-football/arsenal/cheffernan/cult-heroes-arsenals-john-jensen/