After the good win over Dortmund in midweek, Arsenal face a trip to West Brom tomorrow and the manager, much like the old woman who lives in a shoe, has so many injury problems he doesn’t quite know what to do.
Not that the old woman had injury problems, bar a quite tired womb from having so many children, but you know what we mean.
Wojciech Szczesny hasn’t been able to train, Mikel Arteta is sidelined with his calf strain, Yaya Sanogo “has problems”, while Danny Welbeck faces a fitness test on his knee this morning to decide whether or not he’ll be able to join the squad as they take a hot-air balloon to the midlands (this is to offset flying to Norwich thanks to a new scheme with Arsenal’s official carbon footprint partner).
Emi Martinez will continue to deputise for Szczesny if he can’t make it, Mathieu Flamini will come into midfield for Arteta, while up front the manager will have Olivier Giroud available after he sat out the Champions League clash due to ineligibility.
Also, there’s no Theo Walcott as he returned from England duty with a groin problem he has yet to shake off.
Wenger also touched on Jack Wilshere who is recovering from surgery to his damaged ankle ligaments, saying, “Jack is prepared to focus and comeback well. I think he will be back at end of February, beginning of March.”
Anything on Theo?
As the old Armenian proverb says: where there’s life, there’s hope’.
If it bleeds we can kill it
did the read the entire article?
sorry, meant to say Gargoyle, did you read the entire article? read it again because the is a test at the bottom of the page. 😛
I read it and there was nothing on Walcott. Surely it was added (corrected) after I commented.
Yes, it was added in after the first publication.
Just in time. They were about to flay me.
They still might.
Chambo to bang in a brace tomorrow cos I can just feel it and clean sheet. C’mon now lets get our season back on track
The Ox has had some spectacular efforts come off the woodwork over the last year or two. Once they start to ping in off the inside of the bar he will be racking up some of our greatest goals. I’ve got a feeling they are going to start raining in for him soon.
I think Alexis has been a hugely positive influence on our Ox and I’m happy as a pig in poop. My 16/1 bet on him being YPOTY is looking a lot more promising recently!
Koscielny back and Debuchy two weeks away which means no more Monreal at centre back. Thank f**k!
I do want Kozzer & Debuchy back but Monreal has done a very decent job in every game he’s played at CB. He isn’t a natural CB but he hasn’t been our ‘problem’ in the back 4/5.
You can see clear improvement in each performance. If there’s a silver lining it’s that by the time this job is done we will have developed ourselves an actual 4th choice center back due to the experience he is currently gaining.
There is some improvement, but the main thing has been that when he gets protection Monreal is a lot more comfortable, I know that goes for every defender but we know we can’t always rely on that so I’d rather he never play at Cb ever again. In reply to the guy above, I actually think that he was the problem, or at least a hefty part of it, against Anderlecht as when we were pressured he couldn’t do the whole ‘repel all boarders, head it out’ kind of defending that really should be a qualification for CB. It was… Read more »
Oit. There’s only one Big Dave here. And he doesn’t use that sort of language.
As much as Thomas Vermaalen has given us many a fond memory (those THUMPING headers!) during his time at Arsenal, defensively, I for one feel far less nervous watching Nacho Monreal in that left-footed + left-sided CB position, than our former captain.
Why don’t we just daub a red ‘x’ on all the doors of London Colney and put a barrow man on staff whose sole job is to walk around the complex shouting “bring out yer dead!” I’m sure it would save time and money.
HFB is back on time, our style of play requires a big, strong center forward who can hold up play. And no one does that better than HFB.
Hopefully one of the other CFs is fit for the bench so HFB doesn’t have to play a full 90 mins and risk injury so quickly into a comeback.
Some 15-20 minute cameos for Campbell perhaps, if the games permit?
Against WBA he may be able to do it for a while when the opposition tire but he’s not a CF, he’s a winger and possibly a future CF when he learns to play with his back to goal.
And by now he really should have had more game time as a winger.
Probably AWs biggest fault IMO is he leaves the sub too long.
sorry who is HFB?
Our very own Handsome French Bloke of course! Ollie G!
Hector F Bellerin
Sorry on behalf of everyone who thought lack of knowledge should be thumbed down!
I’m not sure it requires it, and if it’s such a big part of our play, you would have to ask questions as to why we were going to go into a season with only one of them, plus an untested (but potentially useful) Sanogo. Then again, I always wonder when Wenger talks about all the different things that Diaby gives the team and how wonderful it is, that we don’t have anyone else who can do that. It’s going to help agianst the lesser teams, and another string to the bow is never a bad thing, but I don’t… Read more »
How typical. Just when it looked like we might finally be getting on top of things too. Look at the players out, Arteta, Debuchy, Szczesny, Walcott, Ozil, Wilshere, Welbeck, Vivas, Hoyte, Steve Walford, I just don’t know how we’re managing. It reminds me of when I was the first to open a multinational coffee franchise in the town I lived in. Having visited the America I saw how popular they were there and the flavours! My goodness. Coffee with mocha and flambé and marshmallow and all kinds. It was the future, I could see that immediately. I came back home… Read more »
I think I saw the video of the dog at the vets. If I recall correctly it was a Dyson.
Martinez
Chambo – BFG – Kos – Gibbs
Flamini – Rambo
Ox – Cazorla – Sanchez
Giroud
Subs: Monreal, Bellerin, Rosicky, Podolski, Sanogo
Should be enough. The Arteta/Rambo axis will be missed, as there’s always a defensive mistake in Flamini. Hopefully we score 8 to counter it.
Alexis to get 6 of them.
That’s about as good a line-up as we can put out this weekend. What’s really scary about it is that due to all the injuries, we may in fact only be able to name five substitutes.
What worries me is we get to January with only jack out and dosey Wenger wont buy in the window
Can Monreal play defensive midfield?
The nice thing is he CAN play on the left with Gibbs if we want to solidify.
——————-Martinez——————-
Chambers—–Per——Monreal——Gibbs
———–Ramsey—-Flamini—————
Ox—————Santi—————–Alexis
——————Giroud———————–
This, the team that is likely to start tomorrow, is good enough to beat West Brom. But we, being Arsenal, are the most inconsistent team in the world and even our best possible eleven, which is
—————-Szczesny—————–
Debuchy—-Per——-Kos———Gibbs
————-Ramsey—-Arteta———–
Walcott———–Ozil—————Alexis
—————–Giroud———————-
could be sweating out in the injury time to score a goal and collect at least one point at the end of the day.
Really tough being an Arsenal fan. But nevermind, I am gunner till I die. COYG!
‘Sanogo ‘has problems’ ‘ – I’ll drink to that. Very welcome goal though.
What’s the status on Gnabry?
Hold on, let me check the manifest. Ah, here it is. Serge Gnabry is currently suffering from the Bubonic Plague. The medical team doesn’t believe it to be serious and he’s expected back in 3 weeks.
Gnabry not ready?
Ironic, isn’t it. The very season we appear to start taking our ‘injury problem’ seriously our ‘injury problem’ starts getting very serious.
Who needs Szezcny, Ospina, Hayden, Debuchy, Wilshere, Arteta, Diaby, Walcott, Gnabry, Ozil, Welbeck, or Sanogo anyway? Who? Oh. We do. Sorry.
12 players out. Damn!
I wonder what our internal investigations into these injuries concluded…
After hiring a team of top investigators, they work for FIFA, the findings show that we may or may not have 12 players injured. In some universe, somewhere. These findings are preliminary and will surely change after review.
At this time the report will not be released due to concerns about the privacy of those injured.
Ha Ha!
Dortmund.
The Gimp: What worries me is we get to January Jack out and dosey Wenger wont be able to sell him in the window.
Anything on Abou?
Hmmn… Problems – Problems and Problems. Will they ever end?
What can you do about it? Absurd thing to say. Try buying players who aren’t injury prone would be a good place to start
They’ll just learn how to become injury prone at our expense then!
Perhaps you can lend Arsene your crystal ball, so he can see into the future and know which players are going to be injured a year or two down the road. And if you have some magical means of knowing this, why on earth didn’t you point out back in June that it was no use buying Debuchy or Ospina because they’d miss most of the season injured? It’s no good your making that prediction after the fact.
What’s the latest on Ozil?
No foot off the pedal bollocks, Dortmund were facing us without a host of players including Giroud, Welbeck, Walcott, Ozil, Jack, Debuchy, Szsc and Koscielny benched. Would hardly think given their current form they would deem to take it easy and let us creep in to two points off them with Anderlecht not a forgone conclusion. Having said that, we are piling up again. Most worrying would be Arteta. Hope its just aches and pains from age. In his absence, Flamini will have to get diligent support from our man Ramsey who could be a yard or two off his… Read more »
Why no comment in the article about Debuchy only being 2 weeks away? That’s pretty good news. If you watch the full press conference Wenger says that near the end.
That’s very good news. Also frees up Chambers as backup and rotating CB.
Says West Brom gets hammered