Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Aaron Ramsey is back in full training ahead of Arsenal’s crunch Champions League tie with Dinamo Zagreb.
The Welsh midfielder has been out since banjaxing his hamstring against Bayern Munich at the end of October but resumed full training this morning.
It remains to be seen whether he’ll be thrown in the deep end tomorrow night, however, with confirmation that Francis Coquelin will be missing for at least two months his return to action is welcome news.
In the absence of Coquelin and Mikel Arteta – whose recurring calf problem struck again on Saturday – Wenger has hinted that Calum Chambers could provide backup to Mathieu Flamini in defensive midfield.
The Southampton Academy graduate was touted for the position when he first arrived at the Emirates but has only featured once in the role; in last season’s defeat away at Southampton
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck remain sidelined.
Play him, Flamini and Bielek with Özil and Cazorla to pull the strings behind Sanchez up front. Three defensive heads and two maestros to take the wing effort of Alexis’ tired legs. He guy needs aren’t, but he’s pretty much essential every game.
Didn’t notice the typos. I meant to say “the guy needs a rest, but he’s pretty much essential every game”.
It’s a no from me…
so you want our 20 year old rb/cb to sit in the hole with Flam and a 17 year old with no first team experience in front of him, our 2 best creative players on the wings, our star winger at striker, and our only fit/currently in form senior striker on the bench. who replaced your brain with marbles a four year old melted on the stove
Blimey people. You might not agree with SWs view, and I don’t necessarily go with that lineup either, at least the bielik part, but I’m not sure it deserves quite the hate and vitriol. ‘Marbles for a brain ‘?? Get a hold of yourself man.
I am not a happy man
I often visit my herbalist at times like these
The signings Wenger could/should have made during the summer were a defensive midfielder and striker – he didn’t and is now suffering the consequences!!!
Please don’t come on here and state the obvious. You’d be surprised how many can’t take it.
Rob you’re perpetually so bitter!
There are no consequences to suffer for Wenger, he knows all he has to do is finish in the top 4 and turn a profit and his boss is happy. Wenger couldn’t care less about how the fans feel- he’s proven that consistently by ignoring obvious gaping holes in the squad and failing to address the annual injury crisis for a decade. He’s lucky he works for an owner that really couldn’t care less about winning, he would have been sacked from an ambitious club years ago
This ^^^^^^^^^ – In letter ten feet tall, dumped outside Highbury House or in Stan’s backyard over in Colarado.
FWIW, I’ve never seen or heard of Stan even attending a Rapid’s match, in Colorado, over the last four years. I think his son, who’s “really” the one in charge of KSE was only there one time that I can remember in the last four years. Of course, they could have worn disguises during those times.
We have similar feelings here toward KSE, but they definitely have spent more money and are more active in markets than before, so maybe they are trying to right some things here.
Who is thumbing this down?
Sometimes the obvious answer is correct. Wenger is a great man, but his failure to buy in a summer when we had a legitimate chance to win the league is going to cost us.
Pointing that out doesnt make you anti arsenal or whatever. It makes you a rational supporter who’s frustrated.
It’s being thumbed down because it’s bollocks.
and boring…
Why is this bollocks? How can you argue we wouldn’t be much better off if Coquelin had capable competition and we had another forward that isn’t Joel Campbell to keep Gibbs off the wing and give Alexis a chance to recover? I’m very much a fan of Wenger but he consistently leaves us with a short squad. We went into last season even shorter; Arteta as 1st choice DM and Monreal as 3rd choice CB! This year we have depth in quantity but not quality – Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky are all totally finished at this level, they can’t even combine… Read more »
Don’t say it out loud. Being rational makes you a negative fan according to most on here.
At the start of the season presuming Ozil is nailed on for CAM we had numerous options for the CM position. We had Wilshere, Ramsey, Arteta, Flamini, Cazorla, Coq, fighting for 2 CM spaces. We also had the Ox and young Bielek who could also be used there as well as Chambers in an emergency. What if we had of bought a shiny new DM and we actually didn’t have a catastrophic injury list for once? He’d never get to play and people would criticize us for wasting money. It’s hard to win with people. Injuries are killing Arsenal for… Read more »
Can’t say I disagree at all with much you are saying. Injuries have been hurting us forever, and that eventually lands at the management level.
I love Arsene and want him to have glory because he deserves it, and then I will share it too as a fan, but you are dead wrong thinking there are many fans out there that would care if we happened to waste money on a good back up or two! Who are these other people and why would we give a fuck what they think?
What chance and who are the players that meet the Arsenal standard that were readily available to Arsene Wenger in the summer transfer market? Is this a mere speculation on your part? If not, please provide genuine evidence to back your claim.
Buying reliable players is not to be likened to upgrading your wardrobe by just bombarding a shopping mall with cash in your hand.
You do realize it would be a managerial nightmare to have bought another DM and ST during that period when most of our first team players were fit? Despite the fact our current situation would quote on quote be remedied had we done that, it would be impossible to sign him considering whoever the DM we were interested in would have considered the fact that we have Arteta, Flamini, Ramsey, Wilshere in our midfield and thus wouldve known that it wasn’t going to be easy to get playing time. Sure, Arteta is getting old and injury prone; but if we… Read more »
Let Flamini Go….. make Arteta a coach ….. sign a legit DM….
Or he would have thought, I’m better than Flamini and Arteta, and probably better than Coq too, bring it on.
I don’t think Ramsey and Flamini are exactly galacticos.
I totally couldn’t agree less with that statement. It makes it easier for Arsene. The more quality players he has in the squad all playing at the top of their game is what every manager wants. It allows him to rotate players to without changing the momentum of the team. That’s ultimately what costs us every season, we never have quality in depth; yeah we have a quality first 11 – but to compete across The Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, The League Cup – you effectively need two teams brimming with top players. We don’t have that, hence… Read more »
Yawn….
I’m as worried as the next guy about our depth/injuries in the center and on the right, but if we were to lose Olivier now we’d be up shit creek without a striker as the old saying goes. someone better cover that beautiful man in bubble wrap between games
I think Chambers also had a sub appearance as a DM this season (?) With a 17m fee (FA fines) and bad presss he’s cost us, it’s time he shows his worth.
Chambers played last year at soton away as DM along side COQ, and had really bad game, I think he is to slow to play as a DM, he is typical CB
Arteta isn’t exactly lightning fast and he’s been doing it for four years!
There isn’t one way to play DM. If Chambers positions himself well and keeps his discipline he can do a good job. He’s very good on the ball too. It didn’t work against Southampton because he was playing with Coq. They just obviously wouldn’t work in tandem. Put him with someone like Cazorla or Ramsey and I reckon he would be ok if he keeps it simple.
but note that chambers is really bad passer, and when we face teams pressing us we will be in big troubles, exactly like liverpool targeted him and pressing him at emirates when he played CB and had much more time on the ball than you would have in midfield which resulted in chambers gifting them 2-3 clear cut chances, so no please i would rather play ramsey there then chambers maybe I would like to see him against lesser teams which we dominate.
Arteta also has many years of experience, field intelligence, and composure under his belt. Needs must, and Chambers has a great future ahead, but it’s not by any means a no-brainer decision with how important Coquelin has made that position.
If Chambers can’t step up as a DM, then that’s clearly money wasted. He was bought for his versatility and has ruled himself out as a right back. You don’t spend that much on a 3rd choice central defender, regardless of nationality. Gabriel and Zhouma were both below 12m. Just like Welbeck, he has to show he can cover at least two positions or find himself surplus to requirement.
There’s no shortage of pretty faces in this team.
He’s 20 years old for God’s sake. Give him a break.
I remember the same type of comments when we recalled Coquelin back from Charlton. Interestingly, mostly by the same people who are now contorting themselves over his absence. Fickled.
I would love to see chambers rise up to the occasion. And I agree with your point regarding his age. However, his shocker against Liverpool revealed a mental fragility when asked to do a job under pressure. Mental fortitude is not something that is coached or you get with experience. And for the same reason I am afraid he may choke again.
Mental fragility? You mean confidence, right?
Confidence is absolutely something you get with experience. Experience and game time, a good run of form. Writing off a youngster due to not holding his own against a team is a futile exercise.
Not fair.He had a poor first half for sure but showed his mental strength by playing far,far better after the break.
As usual we are paying the price for Wengers stubbordness! A DM to back Coq was obvious for all to see and now we are royaly fucked.
What makes people think it is so simple to get a quality player who would be satisfied with a back-up role. I agree that adding another DM should have been the focus (much more so than striker), but what guarantee would we have that a new player with limited game time could now step in and effectively fill the role better than anyone we currently have. Had we signed that “world class” striker so many were demanding, I doubt he would have scored more than Giroud this season.
Love Giroud but Suarez or Lewandowski would have scored more goals. Not saying we could get them, just making the point.
What point? That the best strikers in the world are pretty good at scoring goals?
His point was that there are better strikers than giroud out there contrary to what some of you think.
All those bastard pundits must be sitting at their laptops, prawn sandwich in hand with a smug look on their face as they re-read their summer article about “If Wenger gets a world class DM and Striking options to go along with Cech, they will be favourites in the league.”
Can’t say I don’t blame them either.
Hopefully Beilik is on stand-by. Maybe even bring back Toral.
Interesting that you bring up Toral. I would think he is more of an offensive player, but perhaps he can play the same role as Arteta with Ramsey alongside. Beilik seems a good option to me, but perhaps he isn’t ready.
I think Chambers will do really well in the DM position.
I’d love to see Toral succeed, he’s a good lad and it would also be another middle finger aimed at Barcelona. However, I’m not entirely sure he is ready right now, he’s on loan at the moment and I think he’s doing well. Hopefully he can start pushing for a place next year, but Chambers is realistically our best option right now (feel free to read only option). As for the pundits, we have an uncanny knack of making them choke on their sandwiches and change their minds half way through a season. “Arsenal won’t win a trophy this year… Read more »
Chambers played in midfield vs Southampton away, if i’m not mistaken.
Sadness overwhelms poor me..
I can´t believe that we are in the same situation AGAIN. Proper first 11 and decent back-up at the start of the season. Two months in and we´re at the top and we´re playing great football.
Three months in half of our squad is stretched, banjaxed, sprained and/or kicked half to death and all hope is lost. Give me that top 4 trophy!!
Play the kids, scratch this year down to experience, finish bottom, concentrate on domestic trophies, get rest for some of our players. If he plays our first team, and Kos gets injured, or Cech, or heaven forbid Sanchez, he’ll have fucked our entire season because of his own stubborn mentality. This news about rushing back Ramsey and Ox worries me. I thought we’d got past this. Now I think we’re going to do further long term damage to both the players, which is madness. I’d love us to win every game, and put out our strongest team, but that is… Read more »
3 months in, 2 points off the top and your answer is ‘scrap this year and give up’?
Even the Chelsea scum are showing support for their team as they languish over relegation, where as our fans think we should just chuck in the towel after a loss. Sickening.
No, he was just talking about the CL. We are not guaranteed to qualify from the group even if we win our last two games so it would be madness to risk further injuries as it stands. Once we get a few players back we have a chance of fighting for the title but not if we continue to lose players from overplaying them. Sadly with the current state of the squad we need to prioritise matches
I support the team and I want them to do as well as possible, and what is possible is saying ‘fuck the champions league’ because, let’s be brutally honest, we’d probably fuck it up even if we got through the group next round. We’d be up against Real or Barca or the such like. All I am saying is protect the squad which is already battered. Also, you are allowed to question Wenger and his poor decision making and not be anti arsenal.
Chambers has played as DM against a good Southampton side last year. Didn’t work then, but again, a lot of time has passed since then. I’m pretty confident he has the ability to play the position, but it might take a run of games (which he might not have at his disposal) for him to feel comfortable.
But still, no need to lose faith just yet, if the manager thinks he can do it, so do I.
In my opinion Chambers could become a decent dm, he is good with the ball, he is a great tackler, he can offer physical presence in the midfield. However his positioning is one his weaknesses and the most important part of being a dm is where you position yourself to intercept the ball. But he can work on that, everything is possible, look at Coq’s example. I’m really hopefull that Chambers can show that he is capable to play in a “new” role and solve our dm problems in the next few years (alongside le Coq).
I would love to have Wenger replaced with either Guardiola or Koeman; can’t take Wenger’s poor management anymore.
2 points from the top of the league, I really do wish people like you would get over yourselves. You think we’re having a poor season being 2 points of the league? Look at Chelsea.
*off the top of the league
Sure, 2 points off the top of the league, a league which is absolutely awful this season, whoever wins it will be the least worst of the challengers. That could be us, and I wouldn’t give a shit if it was partly because there were no good teams this season, but it won’t be us and we all know why, because we don’t have enough quality in depth and most of the quality is brittle and highly injury prone making our predicament less a case of bad luck and more a bang-on certainty.
hmmm injury everybody why what is wrong well only God no what is happening, God of Israel, God of Biafra is with our players, am not afraid
It’s a well known fact that God supports Plymouth Argylle. We’re on our own here.
Let wenger use him dnt doubt him
sometimes it happen to sharpen our team
Go chambers
Think chambers is a good fit. Tall , strong, good tackle, disciplined, great aerially, a fighter and hustler. Just get the ball and tidy give it to. Oxil
Dont doubt chambers hope he will do well than cow.
Mooooooo!
If you mean that you don’t doubt Chambers’ ability to perform better than a cow at DM then I agree!
😉
My only consolation is that we tend to do better in the 2nd half of the season in recent years. This usually coincides with our injuries clearing up. Judging from the fixtures, if we are still there or thereabouts come february, the league title will be a distinct possibility. I believe.
From my observations, November seems to be the most unlucky month for Arsenal (loose more matches than any other month).
I hope we still survive the rest of the month with winning the two remaining matches.
Am not buying the ‘he’s only 20’ crap. How old is Bellerin?
Chambers was a bad deal fron the onset and is not suoted for the Arsenal game. Not now not later.
Am not buying the ‘he’s only 20’ crap. How old is Bellerin?
Chambers was a bad deal fron the onset and is not suited for the Arsenal game. Not now not later.
It’s weird not seeing diaby in that list.
Can’t we put Sustainable Business Model at DM and maybe bring in 3 Million Pound Advice to give Santi a long deserved rest?
What Sustainable Business Model lacks in speed he makes up for in doggedness.
Isaac Hayden.
On a season long loan at Hull.
If he’d stayed here then he’d be the obvious replacement.
what’s the latest on the Ox and Walcott? I thought that the Ox was due back in training already?
On the plus side: We have all of our first choice and back-up defense fit, two of our three first-choice midfielders and two or three of the first team attackers, depending on whether you count Giroud. In the first team only Flamini is a back-up player, and he is an experienced defensive midfielder who at 31 is not over the hill or injury-prone. Most of our injuries are to squad players. We miss them to rotate and make an impact as substitutes. When Walcott and Ox are back by next week, we will have these options in attack. City and… Read more »
Very positive but we do have “previous” for keeping on losing players to injury!
Here’s hoping that consistency ends soon COYG!
Wenger has often stated he sees Chambers as a long term DM prospect so now is his chance to get some experience there. I seriously doubt Flamini will last without picking up an injury again having to play every match at his age. Certainly he is the best option right now, but Chambers will need to step up if given the chance. Only way he is going to get better and acclimated to that position is to play. Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury to give him some “easy” games to get his feet wet in.
As much as I loved his brace, if Flam stays put in defensive positions ala Coq instead of busters into the box that’s less wear and tear.
I’m going to support the players regardless. They’re all we’ve got.
Alexis and Campbell (or Gibbs) on the wings, Ramsey slots in Coq’s spot next to Cazorla and Ozil in his usual place. This is not a bad team. It should do a job until January or until more bodies come back from the medical bay.
My understanding is that Chambers, as it stands, replaces Arteta on the bench next to Flamini. He is an option, that is all.
Seconded.
A quick reminder, the year Ramsey ‘went back to basics’ and had his supreme purple patch he also had some monster tackling stats.
But with him or Jack there paired with Santi everyone needs clear marching orders. The Wilshere – Ramsey ‘double pivot’ was a train wreck.
Flamini is a better back up to the injured Coquelin Granted perhaps not as atheletic due to age, he won’t be as knackered as Arteta. He is also a better player than many imagine him to be. He uses the ball well and is generally fully commited. Where he will need quick improvement is getting his passing range up to speed quickly as he has not been in the first team regularly and will mislay some passes. Otherwise we are with good cover with Flamini. Chambers is one for the future and should not be risked unless absolutely necessary. Come… Read more »
Well, Chambers can’t be worse than Arteta last weekend. Could do a job there if he gets help from the rest of the team defensively. Plus he has looked better as a CB this season.
Chamber’s progression has not been smooth. I think there was always the feeling that he could end up in midfield and indeed the gaffer mentioned it many times that this could be an eventual role for him yet many preferred to believe themselves and thought he was a natural at Cback. Frankly he cost us points in an unfamiliar role at Cback. Chambers is first and foremost a Right back and he may well revert to this position given age of Debuchy and himself respectively. What he has is a calm disposition on the ball and good technical skills which… Read more »
I am worried that the only new roll Chambers is ready for is made of bread and cheese…
We should be able to still beat the “small” teams with Flamini instead of Coq. Sure “there’s no weak team in the PL bla bla bla”, but let’s face it, if we can’t beat the likes of Norwich with the players we got, we won’t win the title. Accidents like WBA should never happen again anymore.
Who knows?
It could be his time to shine and prove all of us wrong. I think he needs to see this as an opportunity stake his position in the team and possibly get himself a call-up into the England team.
Chambers can’t even play his position let alone dm. He might even be slower than arteta.
Wilshere and Ramsey are injured every season. Pay the backup and he’d be fine coming to arsenal to compete.
We didn’t act. Now we are once again stuck playing inferior players out of position.