Arsene Wenger says Mathieu Flamini and Aaron Ramsey will return to full training tomorrow, although neither midfielder will be fit for Sunday’s match against Everton.
The pair have both been sidelined by hamstring problems in recent weeks with Ramsey limping off against Leicester on 10 February and Flamini picking up his injury in the FA Cup game with Middlesbrough FA five days later.
“They come back into normal training today and tomorrow,” Wenger told his pre-Everton press conference.
“They are nearly there, not completely there. From Wednesday night I don’t think we have lost anybody. We have no major problems.”
In the absence of both men Wenger has opted to play Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin in the centre of the park with Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez flitting across the attack behind spearhead Olivier Giroud. After an injury lay-off of his own, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain made a goalscoring return to action on Wednesday night.
In other news the boss also confirmed that Jack Wilshere will need a few more days on the sidelines after undergoing a minor procedure on his troublesome ankle. He also confirmed that long-term absentees Mathieu Debuchy and Mikel Arteta are still some weeks away from first team action.
An on-form and fit Ramsey is very important for us. Gets about the pitch, scores goals.
The problem is that Ramsey is highly likely to have another issue with the hamstring as he returns to game action. If he is just returning to training he is going to need a few weeks to really test things in practice before being thrown into the intensity of game (what happened last time) action. Not sure if there any reserve or youth matches he can play in before first-team action.
Its gonna be nice to have Jack and Rambo back as we all saw that santi is not a good option alongside le Coq.
Right yes like against Man City and throughout most Jan and Feb when Santi won Arsenal player of the month – both months?
Missed Ramseys presence on Wednesday. May not be in form but he still provides better defensive solidity and makes important runs in the box
Diaby?
Dude, he died like 5 years ago.
oh man, how did this get thumbed up?
Sorry David, just doing a “bit” – it’s a bad-horror movie cliché that I decided to parody. I think there’s a Friends episode where they reference it…hold on, I bet I can find it on YouTube somewhere.
Searching…searching…aha!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6el2a6_jFo
Anyway, apologies for any offence caused.
Just don’t.
Maybe diaby can do a Rosicky, Rozza was out injured 2 and a half years plus not to mention other injuries when he was playing, Wenger said today that he will talk about his contract with diaby, i see gieve one year extension with pay cut if he comes good like rozza with no more serious injuries give him another 3 year, diaby will accept it he knows that wenger kept him all these years and no other manager will do that. plus he is 28 he has 4 excellent years in him if he overtakes all the injury problems.
Trouble is that he has been out for so long that it will take him four years to get match fit!
I feel for the guy!
Whoppy do I can’t wait.
Where is Arteta? When was his last game? Can’t even remember. 🙁
Arteta is out for the remainder of the season I believe. Or will be available for the last few games
My gut tells me Arterta has played his last game for Arsenal. Schneiderlin coming in the summer, Coquelin coming to fruition… I can’t see him being first choice, at all.
Good to know
I am missing Arteta, in fact the team is missing Arteta, because we play better with him on the pitch, imo. Come back real soon, please..
Somebody to organize and compose passing in the midfield has definitely been sorely missed. He does that better than anyone else in the squad.
After that last dismal performance I find myself unable to be my normal cheery optimistic self. The most important thing for me is not who is in the team but how many of them turn up on match day. It also isn’t so much about the taller or younger players or what position they play. What is trenchant is that they bring their fucking hearts with them. Having a heart attack last 10 minutes at 2-1 up is what being an Arsenal supporter has always meant to me. I can live with that. Not watching very well-paid professionals running round… Read more »
If the problem is clueless-ness, mightn’t the solution be coaching? Wenger similarly puts all the blames on the players, calling them suicidal and unintelligent. Seems an odd diagnosis when you remember that over £100 million has been spent in the past two years, including on the club’s three most expensive signings ever; the average age on Wednesday was 26; there were 9 senior internationals and two World Cup winners in the team – and yet Monaco’s kids comprehensively outplayed them. You want our clueless amateurs to go back to basics and show a bit more heart and determination. This sounds as… Read more »
It was an embarrassing and amateurish display. With the players we have I feel sick to the stomach that we have practically certainly killed our Champions League dreams once again.
With Wilshere always returning to training when Ramsey gets injured and vice versa, one might think that they’re actually the same person and can’t appear at the same time.
Hoping for a fully fit goal scoring Ramsey.
COYG!
Rambo is average , Flamini finished.
It’s this acceptance of mediocrity that is our bane. Did you see Kondogbia on Tuesday; that is the archetypal box to box footballer. Strength, running power and technical ability to burn. He dorminated us on Tuesday and along along with his mate, Bakayoko did same at the Emirates cup.
I will put a blanket on Rambo, Flamini, Arteta, Diaby and get rid of all of them in the summer. Buy, Scheneiderlin , Kondogbia , keep Coquelin promote Hayden and Bielik.
then put your xbox controller down and make a cup of tea. Splendid!
May seem utopia to you but absolutely doable.
A middle three of Schneiderlin/ Coquelin – DM, Kondogbia/ Wilshere- box to box and Cazorla/ Ozil- AM will contest this league.
How about you watch Kondogbia on a more regular basis before making such claims. He definitely cant match Ramsey in terms of technique and vision.
And you cant just have big powerful midfielders. You need dexterity and creativity. None of the players you listed provide that
I followed Kondogbia when he was in Sevilla . Their stand out player by a mile. He was actually linked to Madrid before Monaco snapped him up for £17Million. Go see again the Emirates cup again on Arsenal player. Both were involved and see the difference. Kondogbia is 21yrs but so ahead of Ramsey in terms of technique , power and footballing sense. Together with Progba, they starred in the under-21 tournament a few years back. All the pundits working for Sky and Gary Neville on commentary thought he had an outstanding game for Monaco on Wednesday and the kind… Read more »
Informative reply concerning Kondogbia! We’ve underestimated Monaco twice this season. As for the Emirates Cup – I had already raised questions about our preparedness from not just the pre-season games but the sloppy disinterested performance we put in against Monaco then ( the bloody ‘senior’ squad rather than the ‘juniors’ who joyously romped past Benfica). On the simplest of levels I argued people still paid money to watch it and why did it appear (again) it was of no importance to win. Any opportunity to win a game/cup should be grabbed without question. The irony was we then won the… Read more »
Rubbish. Rambo is in a second rut of awful form. Unusual. When he’s bad he is bad. Consistently. Playing worse recently than when he got unfairly booed 2 seasons ago
What Ramsey did last year, Kondogbia can only dream of that and perhaps until the end of his career.
Yea, always last year with Ramsey.
Hopefully Ramsey and Kondogbia will be fit for the return leg. We will see , won’t we.
Ramsey at his best is probably the best midfielder in the league. Just hope he hits that same form again. Also with all the talk from Wenger on mental problems causing bad performances, then why on earth dont the club hire a sports psychologist? With our problems, we should hire 2. Olympic athletes all have them to help keep their head in the game and stay focused. Anf if ever they start losing faith the sport psychologist, or mental coach as they are called will help get them back on track. We got goalkeeping coaches, fitness coaches, technical coaches, tactical… Read more »
What makes you think the club don’t use sports psychologists? I’d be bloody surprised if we don’t, and if we don’t I’m sure it’s because they’ve tried it and it didn’t make any difference. Arsenal is a mega club now; I can assure you they’re looking at every angle all the time.
It’s not as simple as, aha! Use sports psychologists and all our “mental problems” are sorted.
Cant find any mental coach on Arsenal.com staff section, so I am assuming we dont have one.
When you have ongoing lack of mental strenght responsible for continual bad performances, it would be irresponsible for the club not to have one. And if you had one and it didnt work out, you dont say fock it, you hire someone else.
I know Bayern have a Mental coaching program, and Liverpool praised their mental coach which they hired last season and called him their best signing. And im sure alot of clubs make use of mental coaches today.
Like ZA Gunner said, it’s little bit silly to think that a club as big as Arsenal doesn’t have a sports psychologist or ‘mental coach’ in this day and age. Here he is:
http://www.leadersinsport.com/_about.cfm?pid=176
Nice touch!
Great spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugxlSUs5hig for him live.
Samir Nasri was the best midfielder in the league for 6 months the season before we sold him. Does not mean he ever was the best midfielder in the league. Rambo has shown almost exactly the same amount of amazing perform in his Arsenal career. Rating him any higher than Toure etc is crazy. He is the epitome of this Arsenal team. Talented but with no discipline, common sense or consistency. Specifically no consistency which is a real problem given his recent slump in form leaves most of us really confused as to how good he is……
There is always a caveat with Ramsey! “Ramsey when on form”, “Ramsey at his best”.
He enjoyed a purple patch for six months and has been living off that for a while now.
His passing this season has been awful, shoots poorly and has taken a leave of any defensive positional sense he once had.
Yes, he offers stamina but there are better out there who can offer much more!
And yet he has 6 goals and the team in general looks more balanced with him in it.
Not to mention his “purple patch” won us a trophy that all of us craved
He didn’t win us a trophy a trophy; he contributed to the win.
Point is that we are due an upgrade in that area of the pitch.Ramsey is not in Toure’s class, Matic is streets ahead and I refered to Kondogbia’s performance on Wednesday.
If Arsenal,as a club desire to repeat the cycles of top four scrap and the odd cup in nine years then fine, but to meaningfully contest the EPL and make an impact in the champion league, we absolutely need better personell in the defensive midfield and striker positions.
You are joking, right? Even this season Yaya Toure has been blowing hot and cold; he was heavily criticised at the start of the season for his bad performances. Last season when Ramsey was at his best he was easily better than Toure. Don’t make us laugh. Matic is a different type of player, and yes he is better than our DMs, but then he’s probably the best DM in the world. Why don’t you start complaining that none of our strikers are as good as Messi while you’re at it. We can’t have the best in the world in… Read more »
You are a joke, Yaya will eat up Ramsey and spit him out.
Silva has the silky touch, Aguero is a striker’s dream but ask city fans who their most important player is.
I’m not sure what Toure’s dietary habits has to do with this. This season in the league, Champions League and FA Cup, Toure has a goal/assist every 228 minutes, whereas Ramsey has a goal/assist every 211 minutes. In the league Toure is averaging 1.2 tackles and 0.6 interceptions per game. For Ramsey it’s 3 and 1.2 respectively. In the Champions League Toure is averaging 0.5 tackles and 0.8 interceptions per game, for Ramsey it’s 2 and 1.2 respectively. In short, this season Ramsey does more than twice as much defensive work and contributes to scoring more regulary. You were saying?… Read more »
Ah yes, the illusion of the injured player coming back to save our ills. It was fundemtal flaws in our game that were exposed yet again on Wednesday night, not the factor that any individual wasn’t available to pick. Players returning from injury is welcome and always nice to see but we have a bug in system that hasn’t been rooted out. COYG lets turn over the toffees
Welcome news indeed. Cazorla looks jaded so with ramsey returning, it’s good for more varied rotation. think wenger ought to rotate players a bit more often otherwise it could lead to accumulated fatigue, hence the recent dip in form (from the leicester game). Hope mertesacker & cazorla are rested and replaced by gabriel and rosicky/the Ox on Sunday. I expect Monreal and Szczesny to return too. COYG!
Agree with you. Santi needs rest, looks jaded in the last two games, even tho he still made a decent effort. Maybe The Ox would come in if Ramsey doesn’t make it in time fitness wise.
But in any other day, if everybody is fit, I would still prefer this formation with Mesut & Santi in the middle. These are the two players that makes you love watching football.
I have always been of the opinion that we should get rid of Mertesacker.He is past his best, always causing me heartache.Lest I forget, AW should sign a predatory finisher in the mould of Aubameyang, Dybala or Lacazette.
Aubameyang? You probably don’t even watch those players regularly. Aubameyang is anything but a ‘predatory finisher’. A good player, yes, but let’s not get carried away.
Really afraid the players we sign and bought recently plus the mix of the older/senior players we have, our squad composition is looking more and more like Manures where we have 1-2 brilliant players while the rest of the squad are “win 2 matches, lose 1” players. Too many players that are decent simply by quality alone and we will win if the opposition have inferior players that doesn’t attack our weaknesses. Off the top of the head: Both our keepers, mertersacker, chambers, flamini, ramsey, arteta, wilshere, welbeck, monreal, (yes he was great these last few weeks but his quality… Read more »
santi can play alongside coq and another midfielder in a 433, but i don’t think it works in a 4231 (monaco proved that). it will be interesting to see if wenger reverts to 433 when ramsey and jack come back, or if he’ll choose a 4231 and rotate ozil and santi in the no. 10 role – playing jack or ramsey alongside coq.
Chambers had a crap game in that deep-lying midfield position against S’oton, but I think AW should put him there again alongside Le Coq. I think with him, our main problem will be getting forward rather than defending.
Actually with The Ox back, he can play that deep-lying playmaker role with Walcott, who seems to have found his touch, running down the flank. I don’t know what to say about Welbeck.