Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Danny Welbeck will miss the FA Cup final on Saturday, and subsequently the England internationals in early June.
The striker has been suffering from hamstring and knee problems and hasn’t recovered sufficiently to be considered for Saturday’s Wembley showdown.
“We called the FA yesterday to explain his bone bruising had not healed,” he said.
Other than that it seems the rest of the squad is fit with the Arsenal manager saying both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mathieu Debuchy are available – although he hinted they’d probably be too short of fitness to be starters.
“Everyone else is available. Arteta is back in full training. We have no new injuries from the weekend.”
As you’d expect, he wouldn’t be drawn on who will start in goal with a decision to be made between current no 1 David Ospina and ‘cup keeper’ Wojciech Szczesny.
He will play Chezzer, like he played Fabianski last season. Fine by me, Ospina wasn’t that convincing the last couple of games.
Not sure, he would have played Szcz in the last match if so?
We’ll find out Saturday.
What are you talking about? He kept us in the game against Sunderland.
Ospina is a good shot stopper but isn’t convincing at all during set plays. I’d go with Szcez
Theo theo theo!
in relation to not much at all if you have a while and possess a healthy dislike of the scousers (“5 times”) then this is worth a chucklesome read http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/377ddf/scary_levels_of_accuracy_from_a_liverpool_fan_on/
Such a shame Welbeck is out. When teams park the bus against us (which almost all of them do!), he adds the pace element, which Giroud doesn’t have, that can get behind them.
I don’t think Villa will park the bus though. Sherwood got them playing much better by being a bit more positive, so I don’t think he’ll want to abandon that completely.
Last season he played Fabianski but also played him in the final league game as preparation.
As he did not play Szechezny against West Brom I assume that Ospina will start which will seriously bring in to question Szechezny’s future at the club.
If Szczesny doesn’t start in goal, it’s all but confirmed that he’s gone.
No it isn’t. Logically:
Fabianski played and left.
Szcz doesn’t play (maybe) and stays.
We don’t know so let’s wait and find out.
This week isn’t moving at all!!! When many light years are we from saturday? Actually somebody please tell me what date and day it is today
This week isn’t moving at all!!! How many light years are we from saturday? Actually somebody please tell me what date and day it is today
Double posting – not helping!
It wouldn’t be an issue if Mr. blogs had created an edit or delete button. At times its like that WC striker some crave for all day. Its arrival is always pending. Anyway it wasn’t intentional
Arsenal is well-beck in the FA CUP final. He helped get us here. We will now wrap this up for him.
Years back the boss played rich Wright all the way to the final then played seaman in the final , personally I hope he plays ooooosssssooooopppppiiinnna ,
Scez doesn’t deserve it. Being dropped may make him think he’s not as good as he thinks …. Resulting In him working harder next year
I really hope Szczesny stays. I’m convinced that he has the potential to make it at Arsenal and to be an absolutely outstanding goalkeeper. He was impressive last season and made some real strides. This season has been a bit of a blip (to say the least), but his form was partly affected by the defence in front of him. The real issue is quite clearly his attitude. He’s been dropped before and there’s certainly the argument that his antics after the Southampton game should be the final straw, but personally I don’t reckon he’s be stupid enough to make… Read more »
Nobody seems to ask about Diaby’s fitness this last month. I was hoping he’d be available and come on to score the FA cup-winning goal in stoppage time but for all we know he’s been cryogenically frozen and buried 5 miles underneath London Colney….