Arsenal have a rather small first-team squad at present, with the group currently consisting of 24 players, not including those out on loan. With injuries having inevitably struck further during the early weeks of the campaign, that number has been whittled down further to just 19, leaving several promising youngsters on the cusp of the senior set-up.
This week, with Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny absent from training, Arsene Wenger has called upon young centre-backs Stefan O’Connor and Julio Pleguezuelo to practice with the first-team. Both players have been select for the senior squad before (O’Connor played against Galatasaray in the Champions League and Pleguezuelo featured in a friendly against Boreham Wood) and should another injury strike to Gabriel or Calum Chambers, either O’Connor or Pleguezuelo would be in line for a place on the first-team bench at least.
It is a similar scenario in other positions as well. Two more defensive-minded players, Krystian Bielik and Glen Kamara, have trained with the first-team recently, whilst wingers Alex Iwobi and Jeff Reine-Adelaide were excellent in pre-season and are, quite literally, waiting in the wings for further first-team opportunities.
Perhaps the most worrying situation is in goal, where, with Wojciech Szczesny and Emiliano Martinez out on season-long loans, Wenger has only two senior options in Petr Cech and David Ospina. Should either of them sustain an injury, then next in line would be Matt Macey, who struggled during a loan spell with Accrington Stanley in League Two last season.
It would be farfetched to suggest that all of the aforementioned youngsters will be involved frequently with the first-team this season, but it would only take a few more injuries to senior players for some of them to be called upon.
Last season, for instance, Martinez ended up playing four Premier League games, whilst Ainsley Maitland-Niles featured in the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League due to the absence of others.
In most positions in their squad Arsenal possess two senior options with at least some experience of playing at the highest level. A couple of further additions (especially in goal) before Tuesday’s transfer deadline would inevitably bolster the squad further, however, and, crucially, add greater depth to a small group.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
…and there was me thinking the Shadster had lifted the injury curse.
Sigh.
Don’t think there is any forsythe to be had in terms of chest infections.
He’s a fitness and conditioning expert. Not a magician or a virus and bacteria repellent.
He’s a fitness coach, not a Lemsip.
Whats a lemsip you arse?
Lemsip is a brand of cold and flu remedies in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. It is manufactured by Reckitt Benckiser.
you sure it wern eamonn arsskicer
Bring it on. It wouldn’t be a real season without some injury worries. Come on you gunners!
Comment:Very interesting.
Well, while all the Arseblog contributions are of huge interest (could i get married with a blog?, considering that I’m still unsure if I’m gay or not, or maybe both sex oriented) I think the contributions of M. Bird are the most telling as regards future of the Armoury, the ones that make you understand the underlying topics (in the good way) of The Arsenal, just the best ones to learn while taking some distance to the immédiate results. That’s why – event if i’m a goddam frog (yeah France) I love you Arsenal fans! And will never, ever, stop…
Madness, just when we thought we got it pretty covered in CB.
Although i’d prefer Debuchy and Nacho in the CB should it get worse.
We have it pretty well covered in CB. It’s been a while since we had four good centre backs. So Chambers had a bad game, but this time last year everyone agreed he was the dogs bollocks, and it’s not as if his talent suddenly evaporated.
I’ve a feeling jeff is gonna be the next big thing coming out of the academy
And Fortune, kids class
It’s ME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfIOBLr1NDU
I’d be happy with Julio as CB 5th choice, kid’s got mad CB potential.
But funny how our squad looked so strong in preseason. Now we don’t even had the minimum 25-man squad.
It’s still a strong squad!!!!
This article is quite pointless…..if Cech and Ospina get injured….. then we would be like any other club.
And like any club could hold onto 3 top keepers, so in my mind there was no point in mentioning the scz loan
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be over the moon if we signed a DM and striker, but if we don’t then it won’t be the end of the world either.
Once our form picks up, people will hopefully calm down
Do you mean “once we begin the 4th place race”?
It does feel a bit like the article is saying if all our keepers get injured, all our keepers will be injured. But fingers crossed anyway.
GKs are the only outfield players that can be called back from a ‘season’ loan. Martinez will be called back if we need him as a starter whilst he may not be quite so keen to come back just to sit on the bench.
We’ve sent the wrong players on loan by the sounds of things!
Could’ve done with the likes of Hayden.
funny how we gamble when investment in the squad would have been wiser!
What gambles?????
Selling Poldi? Keeping Campbell? Loaning Sonogo/Szcz? Releasing Diaby?
Yeah it is definitely time to invest and give the ox and Jeff a run in the team
It’s one or the other, mate. What would be the point of spending money on players to improve the squad if they’re going to sit on the bench in favour of youngsters? don’t get me wrong, I’m all for giving younger players a chance, but they won’t get that chance if we buy players whose fees and salaries demand game time.
I think people really need to calm down on the Jeff hype.
Kid had a great emirates preseason performance, however in academy games since then, he’s shown huge amount of promise along with some flaws (gives the ball way WAY too much, runs down blinds alleys quite a bit, still doesn’t look to be a time player to the arsenal way and hogs the ball too much). He’s not ready for the first team, and people really need to chill on the hype.
I’m sure Jeorge would tell you more.
I would be shocked if our loans don’t have a recall clause. We may have to call a player back rather than dip into the dregs of the reserves. I would prefer a Coq up than a cock up.
While I get what you’re saying, calling our youth prospects ‘dregs’ is a bit harsh don’t you think?
It’s time Mr Wenger gave our young guns a shot, other BPL teams do it, why can’t we? Just let them loose for a few games sir, they might just surprise you.
And if it backfires, the WengerOut brigade will take a day off?
Every step there’s a certain risk but will never know if you don’t try.
That’s what the Capitol One Cup is for.
Other ‘top’ teams do not do it. They’ll give them occasional bench time and bring them on if they’re 3 up with 15-20 mins left, play some in the TinPot Cup or they’ll give them a run in a ‘dead rubber’ game in the CL even. But they’re only used as starters in the top teams in an emergency. We need a few wins to get our 1st team confidence up and then we can risk one on the bench occasionally but we can’t bring a kid into a team when we still need all the senior options on the… Read more »
Debuchy & Monreal will be at CB before either of those.
Especially in goal!?! Seriously!?! We have two international keepers and only one can play at a time. Why would we need to buy another one!?! I agree with the rest of the article, but that last part made me wonder if you were saying it tongue in cheek, or if you actually meant it!!
We don’t need to buy a goalkeeper, but I would have kept Martinez as cover for the first couple of months of the season at least. It might seem an unlikely scenario, and it probably won’t happen again, but last season we were without two of our senior goalkeepers for a few matches in a row.
We can call Martinez back from his loan if necessary.
Shaaaaad
You were supposed to be the chosen one!
Well he’s hardly doing a bad job when you look at the 3 first teamers out through injury, JW, DW & TR, 2 of them are the most injury prone in our squad and DW always had problems whilst at United. Mert has a chest infection which you can do nothing about and Kosc is not a major one seeing as he may be available tomorrow
Serious scaremongering. After all with Terry suspended, CFC will be relying on Cahill (in a mask) and Zouma and who will be the cover should either of them get injured in their next game? Ivanovic probably. So who plays RB? And on and on
And we don’t have an injury crisis – we have 1 defender injured short term out of 8 and one is ill.
The only long term injury we have now is Rosicky…With Welbeck and Wilshere back in training.
How are we supposed to whip up a transfer deadline frenzy with that kind of attitude?! 🙂
I want to believe the loan deals have immediate return clauses in them for all the players out should need be.
I don’t believe it’s that easy. I read somewhere – perhaps another Arseblog article – that year long loans don’t normally have recall clauses in them. Does anyone out there know for sure?
Some of the loans are ‘season’ and some are short term. The season ones can’t be called back EXCEPT for GKs. I think some of the others are to Oct, and Jan (JB should know).
Since some people think that signing only Cech this summer means that this squad are the new Invincibles, worth pointing out that with Stuart Taylor out injured all of that season, our only goalkeeping cover for Lehmann was the Matt Macey-esque Graham Stack. And Cech and Ospina make for a much stronger keeping situation than Lehmann and a fit Taylor anyway..
I’ll be waiting for the day when injuries strike the youth too, and Arsene has to pick a fan out of the stands to start at CB. I can do it! Pick me!
None of the injuries seem major. I wouldn’t get worried at this point.
It’s my fault everyone. I should have made it clear I was being sarcastic earlier.
Blogs, can we have a sarcastic font to type with in the future?
Mate, can I ask you to change your username please? Not comfortable with this one.
THANK YOU! Everyone knows it’s “left in the Debuchy.”
@Yankee Gooner
You tried.
Apologies for my name, if it bothers anyone I will change it…
Any better?
Ok ok ok I had my little joke I’ll be good now, promise
I’m too used up to even reach for my coat.
None of those young gunners are near first team,for me at CB fifth and sixth choice will be Nacho and Debuchy respectively and AW is not stupidy i know there is call back clause in many of loans deals,so calm down and enjoy the ride
squad depth
Meterscielny injury is hard to plan for Debuchy is an option but Wenger prefers Calum as the Frenchman just retire ed from injury isn’t up to sufficient fitness That said Calum is inexperienced what is not his natural position Debuchy could be preferred given there is less physical (running) demand than if he played fullback at this stage of his reintroduction Gabriel to me looked good against Liverpool I think Valum has composure for the position but it must be a gamble to entrust him with the responsibility at this stage This is where the signing of Cech is critical… Read more »