Any hopes that Laurent Koscielny might be back to face Manchester United after the Interlull appear to have been quashed by Arsene Wenger who suggested the Frenchman could be out for at least another month.
Having been diagnosed with chronic tendinitis in both Achilles tendons, Koscielny’s last appearance for the club was on October 5th in the 2-0 defeat to Chelsea, before he returned from international duty the following week with the French national side unwilling to risk his fitness any further.
It had been hoped that rest would see him back in time to face Louis van Gaal’s side but the Arsenal manager has ruled that out.
“He has not started running outside so you cannot think he will be available in two weeks’ time,” he said.
“Then, you have to see how he responds to going outside and running. He is not there yet anyway. He cannot run. He will not be available for three or four weeks.”
Of course all of this is dependent on there being no adverse reaction to him running again, and there are fears that the problem might stretch on for much longer than the time frame Wenger refers to.
In the meantime, with Mathieu Debuchy out and Hector Bellerin deemed too inexperienced to start except for a last resort, Arsenal will have to muddle through with just four defenders, increasing the need for the team as a whole to protect the defensive unit.
If there is good news, Wenger did rule out Koscielny needing an operation, saying, “He won’t need surgery. His Achilles on the scans are quite good. He could not go on, so we had no choice.”
This is the one injury this season, that I feel Wenger deserves plenty of the blame on. Particularly playing Kos through injuries in the early part of the season, because Wenger didn’t buy proper cover at Center Back and because Per Mertesacker wasn’t back yet from his World Cup vacation.
Sometimes, to defend arsene’s policy can be the most difficult thing in the world to do
That’s because sometimes defending his transfer policy is the wrong thing to do.
You can defend his tactical brilliance, can’t you?
I am sure, If Kos was on the field we wouldn’t have shipped three against Anderlecht, nonetheless, blame Wenger for trimming his cuticles instead of paying attention to the game.
True, but at least it’s only his cuticles.
Why does he not get asked the obvious follow up by journalists? Or do they ask and I’ve just missed it?If I was a journalist of any standing with a pass to Arsene’s conferences, I would just ask “why didn’t you buy another centre-back” at every presser. One, because it really overshadows everything else about Arsenal’s season – all the tactical choices, mental strength, a little bit the handbrake, zonal marking, player height, record versus top four etc. etc. narratives just recede to the background as explanations for performances thus far compared to the monumental whatthefuckery of failing to replace… Read more »
I’d like to pluralise a well known phrase – Hate to say we told you so. We are a top, top club, one of the best in Europe and one player gets injured and we’re playing a left back or a 19 year old as cover. Ridiculous. We needed a DM last season and he spent the budget on Ozil. This season we needed one if not two CB’s and obviously a DM and he buys a winger and a striker. How can he not see what Arsenal fans in every corner of the world can see? Losing patience now.
City had to spend £35million on Mangala. Utd had £200Million to replace Rio and Vidic, and brought in Rojo. If Chelsea lost Ivanovic and Terry for 10+ weeks, what would their defence be? Time for the moaning Arsenal fans to look at things in perspective. You are all demanding Wenger do more than what clubs with hundreds of millions to spend Have NOT done. lol. Unbelievable. Chill. We are 4th and gonna qualify from our CL group. Not even Christmas yet! Debuchy and Giroud back soon. Theo already back. Ozil back in the new year. Kos could be back before… Read more »
Are you for real mate, I just watched us lose a 3 goal lead against lowly Anderlecht at home and it didnt fizz om me like it should have, ya know why? because i’m use to it under this mans tenure, he is tactically inept, how any coach/manager can go into a premier league/champions league/FA Cup and League cup with only two experienced CB’s is beyond me. Its the same sh1t every season, he has to go wee need a fresh approach
Dam right !!
Chelsea will have Cahill and Kurt Zouma. Now that’s a bad comparison as well because you’re taking 2 Chelsea CB’s out, and we currently only have one out in Kos, and that already leaves us in a mess. Also your whole point is mute because Chelsea can and do rotate their CB’s, which makes perfect sense their injury record is good. Can’t say the same with Arsene.
Chronic tendinitis that was ongoing for several months. How can a professional club of this size not augment the options at centre half. Absolutely staggering yet not surprising. I wonder how much worse his injury is because he prob had to play injured as long as possible. Stuff like this undermines everything good that has happened. Why???
Wenger, that’s why.
It would seem that the word “chronic” is not in the French dictionary.
Nor is rotation , stubbornness , tactics or defence
There is a massive absence of control and direction at this club. Its completely farcical that a) we start the season with 6 defenders (2 centre halfs) and £££ in bank. b) every time we get an injury, AW says the player is 2 weeks away – why not say we don’t know c) the constant references to Abou Diaby, he might as well be talking about inanimate carbon rod (sad but true) d) mental strength of squad- also completely absent at club. If you take a cold hard look at the manager’s performance in the past 5 years how… Read more »
because last seasons was the best of the last 5 years, and people thought things were changing
Was hopeful too but the fa cup looks like a blip on a static\ downward trajectory….
No, we had no choice.
Oh, other than to buy another fuckin centre back in the summer.
Oh…
Get well soon Boss
Who the hell thumbed that down?
Not me, but bc you’re whinning about it (typical gooner) I am gonna do it now bruh
We can always play the CB we brought in to replace Vermaelen.
Oh wait.
Well we COULD play Chambers at CB, who does a fine job there most of the time, and give Bellerin more experience at RB, since he is always an attacking threat and apparently the fastest player in the world.
But nah, let’s play Monreal as centre back, because LOLZ
Wenger should take all blame for this situation. Relying on only two center backs for a whole season is absurd. Poor decsion making by wenger yet again. Wenger out
I keep wondering, Is Arsenal that broke or Wenger just refuses to buy back up players. If we can’t have Khedira why not buy Diame or schneiderlin, they’re both better than Flamini. There are positions that you just must have back up for. Center back is one position you must have a backup for. It’s easier to shift a box to box midfielder to DM or Attacking forward to central. But for defenders who if they make one mistake you concede, you don’t improvise. You don’t play a LB who is not so good as a LB in center half.… Read more »
at least it will make a high scoring entertaining game against Man Utd, for both sides. First of all, the midfield has to defend better than the last time. It is team defending, and those who blame it all on the ‘centre backs’ easily forget that
and he bought amazing this year, so they are making good decisions and making evaluations. All top teams look for CBs, they are not that easy to get…Barcelona got Vermaelen after all, they have more money and status
I accept it may be difficult to get a brilliant centre half. However with our paucity of options and all our resources I simply don’t believe there isn’t a single player in world football we could sign to help us out in this position. It was almost inevitable this would be a problem.
would you rather take a Rojo/ Lovren, or an unfinished product now? Or would you take a carefully evaluated option in january, that has the success of Chambers/ Sanchez? There was at least one top transfer in international football at CB, Benatia to Bayern, but we can’t compete with them
I’d take a carefully evaluated option that was scouted for over a year before last summer arrived. And don’t tell me there isn’t an option out there.
If we don’t have a folder _full_ of various CB targets at various different levels, with notes on their likely availability, ability, cost, strengths and weaknesses, etc alongside similar folders for every other position then there is something very very wrong with how the club is being run.
To defend AW’s decision to not purchase a CB with the idea that there was no CBs scouted and ready to buy is to accuse him of totally mis-management of our scouting system.
Here here, he has been the manager for 18 years after all!
But we r told that we aim to be as big as Barca/Bayern and we do infact have the resources to compete with them! The words of our CEO of the year Ivan!!
Man City had to fork out £35 MILLION for Mangala, and he is awful mate. That’s how many decent CB’s were out there. You could look to the level of Shawcross, Ashley Williams etc, but they would be no better than Monreal if we are honest. And would they move to Arsenal to not play regularly? I am not so sure. Man Utd had £200MILLION to spend on replacing Rio and Vidic. Who did they get? Rojo and Shaw lo.l. Awful. Everyone needs to chill and accept the state of the market. We have let in 11 goals. Chelsea 10.… Read more »
Ezekiel Garay left for relative peanuts. I put on the same level as when Vidal went to Juve for £10mil even though he was clearly and obviously a top talent that the top teams would end up bidding stupid money for sooner or later.
Heck I would’ve taken former Chelsea CB Alex on a free, who’s been pretty decent for AC Milan. World Class? Certainly not, but better than playing freaking Monréal.
or vlarr from villa
I know I’ve talked about this before, but what about Toby Alderweireld? He is on a LOAN deal with Southampton. They’re 2nd in the league, and I wonder why(he was injured earlier so its not all his work, but he’s doing well now). Has the experience needed, played in the Champions league final(didn’t start but the pressure was on alright, the game went down to the wire), played in the world-cup for Belgium. Do you still think good Center-backs weren’t available?
Come on, bruv. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, letting Southampton take Aldeweireld. You don’t kick a man when he’s down.
Yup, I’m sure that was wengers reasoning for passing in him……..smh
Wenger has been clueless for years. We will never be relevant until this arrogant politician is gone
Lol “arrogant”. I love this clichè peddled out about Wenger. Least arrogant man in the universe maybe.
He is right about Wenger being arrogant. Though amiable and humble in character, he is very arrogant about his opinions. He believes he knows it all and the journo and fans can’t tell him what to do or what he is lacking in his team. Very stubborn in his opinion. That is another form of arrogance.
I find his comments about people who have never managed one game actually having opinions the absolute height of arrogance
Wenger needs to stop this Monreal foolishness. Hayden is very inexperienced but I can’t see him doing worse than Monreal who is a left back, not Tony Adams. Either that or play Bellerin. I feel centreback is more important so I would put Bellerin in with Chambers and Mertesacker and Gibbs across the defence. Then when Chambers picks up 10 bookings Hayden comes in to replace him. Not hard Wenger. But agree about the protection. We have to get a clean sheet first then build on that
I would say Hayden would do much worse than Monreal right now – http://news.arseblog.com/2014/11/haydens-first-team-promotion-delayed-by-injury/
This is disgraceful.This doesn’t happen anywhere but Arsenal.
Sort the fucking problem out you wankers. Enough is enough
last i checked, man utd didnt have any top defenders available because they prioritised buying more attacking players they arguably did not need. so only at arsenal?? not quite
True . And look at the state United are in ?
We should’ve got our house in order first .
Chelsea’s backup cb hasn’t played pl football, and is 19. If Chelsea lose 1 cb they are in our position, Manu couldn’t buy a defender with bottomless moneybags, I’m sure we could have gotten a Lovren or backup, but I’m not convinced they”d be a better choice than say monreal, or chambers. Any new player we get needs to improve what we have. Needs to replace either1st choice cb at any time. For this I will wait. I also prefer internal solutions cos you never know how bad an injury crisis you’ll face. We now have 2 long term injuries… Read more »
At least they have a CB cover plus Ivanovic who is also fantastic as a CB. If you are trying to accept Chambers to be our CB cover, then why send Jenks on loan? Why not play bellerin as RB and Chambers as CB instead of Monreal that is not even quality LB? Well he is an upgrade to Santos :). Fact remains that Wenger should have bought someone like Alex
The problem is finding someone who is willing to sit on the bench 70% of the time while mertecielny do the business. (well unless there’s an injury crisis…). Djourou, Verminator, and even Miquel weren’t willing to do that so I dont think a Mat Hummels would.
If we bought Hummels I would sell Mertesacker he has been indifferent this season anyway. And he also claimed himself that it is tough for him to find motivation. Before you give me hate for this, I actually love the fact that Per is a leader for the team and he is passionate but he is so inefficient without a quick and strong defender beside him.
I don’t get this. Why should we look for someone who’s happy to be third choice? Why should either Kos or Mert have automatic starting rights? This has been one of the biggest changes and biggest problems has brought in since he stopped making thru squad competitive for a starting spot, keeping players on their toes. Now we have players who know no matter their form and performance, they will always play. We need a CB who has all the qualities to be a starter, and if he ends up being better than either Kos or Mert then F it,… Read more »
It’s good to have the competition plus chronic tendinitis means kos isn’t going to play every game from now on, personally I think Hummels is better than Bfg hence replacing him in the national team
WHAT?if we bought Hummel the one worry about seating on the bench for 70% would be the BFG not Hummel ..fact is Hummel is much better than our german
A touch of perspective pkease –
1. If we had kept Vermaelen we would be in exactly the same position.
2. Man Utd are currently without the services of 4 centre backs
3. PLEASE stop behaving like hysterical schoolgirls at every setback, it is embarrassing.
You’re welcome
*Please*
Yes, you are correct. The problem is not whether we would be in this sort of trouble if we bought another mediocre backup to the poor Mertesacker, the real problem is Herr Wenger is delusional about the TRUE quality of his defenders thinking they’re world class ball stoppers and then continue with the all out attacking philosophy. With the level of talent of defenders in our team, we should be defending deep like stoke and not venture up the field playing pass ball when we cannot protect ourselves if we lose it. Even with all our defenders healthy, I don’t… Read more »
The decision not to recruit another CB in the summer smacks of gross incompetence and Wenger should be held to account.
And in reply to Cliff Bastin, what is required is a CB to partner Kos. Per should be third choice while Chambers should be that 4th choice CB that also gets regular games as a DM.
He will be back on deadline day and Arsene will call him a new signing.
You are wickid mhan. LOL
What annoys me is at the AGM meeting nobody really questioned Wenger about his incompetence this summer in failing to sign a CB and a DCM. He should of been slaughtered but the real arsenal fans aren’t allowed to voice our opinions. Now we’ve got frickin Monreal at CB with Flamini at Cdm in one of the most defining periods of the season. This is pathetic but hey we’ve been putting up with this crap from Wenger and the board for years, why stop now..
“The real arsenal fans…” You mean the ones who happen to share your views? Or you have to be negative about anything Wenger, board, squad, and basically everything not-named-Alexis (for now) to be a real fan? Get over yourself and come join us fans who also go to away matches. It’s far more fun than the lot of these always-discontent folk. Cheer up. It’s football.
I’m not anti wenger he’s been brilliant for us revolutionised the modern game But he’s taken his eye off the ball and if its not his way then we are all wrong well its not just me is ian wright wrong tony adams wrong no we all want arsene to see what we do we used to be about power and pace we have pace but no power are arteta and flamini strong dominating midfielders ? No ive been to nearly every ground in england following the arsenal i’ve been to europe following arsenal and i was a regular at… Read more »
Surely tv5 and kos was the way forward and bfg on the bench all vermalen needed was a run in the team after a lengthy lay off because a fit and confident tv5 is better than per and if we still had him and not loaned out jenkinson you would have chambers and tv5 in the middle and chambers has been brilliant then you have song who played man city off the park miles better than arteta and flamini and he was free !!!!!! Wenger has become stale and clueless monreal at centre back says all you need to know… Read more »
Needed defenders. Didn’t buy defenders. Wenger really is the architect of his own downfall.
chambers ? we spend 16M on him so we bought one …ho wait we bought debuchy too. his only downfall i think was loaning Carl if he dont trust Bellerin at RB as back up
Whats done’s done…….I at least hope he goes for a certain “Virgil Van Dijk” and Morgan Schneiderlin in January…..okay maybe its way too unrealistic to expect Arsene to buy both during january….But finding and signing a versatile CB who can probably play CDM has to be top priority this Jan…Without that we are fucked..I can’t even fathom how he can say title hopes are not lost yet without taking account the massive defensive reinforcements we need to bring in to just afloat……..!!!
Would you rather see Chambers in at CB and Moreal at RB?
I will take Bellerin RB for now with Chambers as CB. Bellerin will grow playing with Per and others. Worst case play either monreal there and forget forward play
would just like to say, Love the few who are actually writing long winded posts and comparing us to Chelsea’s defensive personnel and what not to justify this shit. Its simply incompetence. And for all those getting thumbed down for saying something about Per, there’s a totally sensible comment above about getting a good defender, and let the best players prove themselves and play. Per or anyone (Ramsey, Wilshere) has no god given right to play because we love them. Now a little off topic, but the same thing, about selections and signings: But as I’ve said before, this is… Read more »
There’s only one thing for us to do, get past all this stuff, the team is now the team and the starting XI is whatever it is. This is arsenal, so we support the team. End of.
We should never have sold Vermaelen. Granted he wanted more game time. While he was not as good as the BFG Koscielny combo, he’s at least as good as any central defender on the market. So instead of paying £15M plus a top wage for a new defender, they could have given Vermaelen a massive enough raise to keep him happy, even if that meant modest game time. But then again, with all the dealings lately with Barcelona, perhaps there’s some behind the scenes deals we just just don’t know about that sent Thomas to Spain.
Uh Vermaelen has been out with a hamstring so bad he hasn’t played for more than 3 months now and there’s talk of him having to get surgery to have any chance of ever playing again. I think selling him to Barca for 15 million quid may have been one of the best moves of the summer. We seem to have dodged a major bullet there.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/29945991
After 10 games, Savage suddenly realises that Liverpool are not good enough. Laughable. I thought Balotelli was a “No Brainer”
We are ourselves shite but hey, to put it in perspective, Dortmund are 2nd from bottom in the Bundesliga. that is shite no matter how much Rock and Roll Klopp would deem necessary to listen to. City are bottom in their CL group and but 3 points ahead.
The lads need to really pull their heads out of their arses and get their act together. Beat Swansea and keep up momentum in the league.
We can forget about any solutions from market for a bit yet and we can put to rest any (justifiable) criticism on Wenger not buying a Cback ( to think some people would rather have us buy a DM first) We have to make do with what we have now. Monreal and Metersecker must keep improving on some semblance of understanding. Bringing Calum into the middle (himself not exactly devoid of mistakes…had he been Flamini he would have been called ‘not good enough”), would also mean having Bellerin on and that may be a bit too much inexperience to carry… Read more »
We have £207million in the bank, in which over £100 million is available, with surplus revenue of around £85million per season for the next 4 seasons… and we couldn’t find a defender?
now I’ve heard it all….
We might have to have spent more than we would have wanted… Maybe much more, but surely that’s better than allowing another season to pass us by?
Wenger should have built a squad to cover our injuries. The whole league know we suffer the most injuries, just a laughing stock playing a poor left back at centre back!
Wenger out!
We should have bought another centre back or even two. That’s obvious.
But immediately what he must do is recall Jenkinson!
Jenks Chambers Mert Gibbs
Monreal and Bellerin as backup
Much better… Until January anyway…
Normally the boss is superb at being massively vague about signings but he came on record to say that if we sold vermaelen we would definitely need to buy a replacement.
Fail.
A fail that could do enough damage by the new year and will end any chance of a trophy.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that with Mert playing every single game, he too will inevitably pick up an injury sooner or later.
Then we’ll be well & truly fecked 🙁
So next year then at the earliest ..
and in other unsurprising news regarding the arsenal team
Even if we buy the best CB in the world, results will not improve if the back four are always left exposed. What has to change is other players willingness to defend. In fact, it is all about winning mentality. If you really don’t want to lose the game or draw, you will track back and be committed in your tackles.
AW in Jan. “We are always in the market for top top players”
AW in Feb after we have failed gloriously to sign anyone “we are happy with our squad with our injured players coming back and with koscielny back in 2 weeks” I have given up on reading about injuries and transfer targets. We won’t sign what we need. Just sit back and enjoy the roller coaster with low expectations you can’t be disappointed! Seems to work for AW.
Mert and Kos are both 29 I believe. We should be bringing in another CB that will challenge those 2 even more. Chambers could well be a CB, but that doesn’t help us too much if we aren’t willing to let Bellerin start at RB. Come to think of it, that Jenkinson loan is looking more and more puzzling. If we don’t buy a defender in January, then we would surely recall him, no? I know his loan is season-long, but I’m pretty sure that promise could be broken. West Ham are tied with us, so we need to weaken… Read more »
how i wish i could give my my thigh muscles to diaby andmy achilles to koncielny i dont need them all i do is fly a plane for 4 hrs everyday
at this rate debuchy will be available to play before koscielny will .
Ok, I think judging by the consensus of opinion on this article today it’s high time that Arsene has the accomplishment of the invincible season retrospectively stripped from his resume. It doesn’t matter how the season ended up after all, Let’s not judge him on the results of his actions whilst carrying out his job. Let’s judge him on our own opinions of how well he did said job before the season started. Anybody else remember the incompetence on display that season, all the fans knew we were short in defence, with only two senior centre backs at the club,… Read more »
Micah Richards went on loan to Fiorentina. Big Arsenal fan too.
I think Wenger has plainly completely lost his bearing on striking a working balance between player loyalty and the ruthlessness his position requires. It’s painful
You cannot defend Wenger for failing to purchase another CB. We have gone into the season with 2 CB’s and luckily for us Chambers has excelled there early in the season. CB’s are hard to come by as of right now, but there were one’s out there e.g. Garay & Alderweireld.