Arsene Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of the festive fixtures against Southampton on December 26th and Bournemouth on December 28th.
After the 2-1 win on Monday it looks as if it will be the same squad that faced Man City.
“We have nobody coming back,” said the manager. “It will be approximately the same players.”
Alexis Sanchez remains sidelined with his hamstring strain, Wenger saying after Man City that the Chilean would be back in mid-January, but in today’s press conference he said “Early January”, so fingers crossed.
Mikel Arteta, Jack Wilshere, Danny Welbeck, Santi Cazorla, Francis Coquelin, and Tomas Rosicky all remain on the lengthy injury list.
Now we’ve beaten the best, lets beat one of the not so best teams that often make life difficult for us.
That old chestnut!
It’s an S team (Swansea, Southampton, Spurs, Stoke) that we did badly against last season.
It will be a big boost to win.
This season so far it’s the West Something teams (Name or Location) that have beaten us – West Ham, West Brom, West London (Chelsea).
So far this year we’ve beaten Sunderland, Swansea, and Stoke (all quit convincingly) and drawn Spurms. No “S” curse this year at all. Time for another 3-0, methinks.
Arsene is sad when any manager loses their job (clearly apart from Maureen). Too classy to say it though…
Festive team news?
Hector “Jingle” Bellerin given leave for extra cockney lessons.
Per Myrrhtesacker off door-to-door carolling.
Frankincense Coquelin planning to play without legs.
You better watch out, better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why: Santa Cazorla’s coming to town (at Easter).
Santi Claus surely.
Let’s do it again over the festive period. Onward and Forward. COYRRG.
Rip roaring respect
I will take Southampton 0 – 1 Arsenal.
Three points & a clean sheet.
No, let’s be greedy! Now is the time to also overtake Leicester in the goals shot statistic.
I’m really excited to see if Wilshere can do a job for us on the right of front three. I remember old videos of him cutting in from the right when he was in the youth team and I think that with Özil and Ramsey making up the creative part of midfield that right inside forward could be Wilshere best chance of making the first 11.
I really do believe that he and Tomas can still make an impact this season. Jack does have some versatility and I agree he can do a job on the flanks but I’d love to see him find a place in the middle. Afterall, Ozil will need a rest at some point and he could be a decent alternative. It’ll also be interesting to see if he could establish a decent understanding with Ramsey. I remember beating United with that pairing a few years back and have since longed to see those two have a stretch of games together.
I disagree. Wilshere’s poor defensively on the right. If you see the 6-3 game against City, two three goals were because Wilshere failed to track Zaba’s runs.
Campbell’s doing an AMAZING job especially defensively, great tackling, great distribution. He’ll get more goals eventually. And Theo’s coming back to form. So I don’t see why you’d go for an unnatural right midfielder.
But Rosicky can surely do a job because he’s tactically very, very smart and our best sliding tackler for sure?
Fair point but I’d argue that the whole team was defensively poor that day and since then team positioning and discipline has improved throughout the squad. If ordered, I believe he could be a viable option but like you said we already have Joel, The Ox and Walcott doing good work on the flanks so this conversation is pretty pointless, ultimately. Also why the question mark over Rosicky, he can slide with the best of them:
https://soccergunz.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/gun__1376754565_ramsey-match-pic.jpg
“approximately” 😐
Chambers for Flam perhaps? He did have a calf niggle against citeh.
Waiting for Cech’s record, hope he gets that against Southampton with a win 🙂
Approximately the same players? Does that leave room for Arteta being on the bench on the 28th, or has he also been mysteriously delayed until the new year for no apparent reason?
The fixture list until March 5 looks crazy. We need to get some players in early this January and touchwood ozil comes through unscathed.
We really need to get creative with our rotation in the next two games.
And Wenger still has sympathy for Jose. After all the cheap jibes Jose has come up with over the years its so easy to return the favour, yet the man is beyond that. He just oozes class it’s unbelievable. I have my differences with him over the years but his personality alone leaves a lot to be admired and I would never be able to hate him based on this basis. Disagree, yes please but to go beyond and hurl abuse, thats just being stupid.
I reckon that Wenger hates Mourinho as much as the rest of us. From not shaking his hand multiple times, to the exasperation and irritation he sometime showed when the press corps filled him in on what stupid and provocative thing the massive cunt had said, and finally the push on the touchline, I think there’s plenty of evidence that Arsene had a good laugh when reading that “The New Specialist in Failure” headline that ran after his nemesis got binned.
He want to rest alexis during the winter break. Now he got it.
Missed the ‘i’
When Ollie scored (on the pitch, I mean) , on the stroke of half time, I shouted with joy for the first time in a while, as the realisation struck me……..we are officially in the title race.
I don’t know why but I feel like the wait for the next game is too tooo long! Wake me up when it’s Dec 26
I understand you perfectly. We’ve been so good lately that Christmas Day is a bit of a letdown.
He also said Rosicky will be back in full training in three weeks. Can’t wait to see him back. I have the feeling this will be his last season with us so I hope he features and gets a proper send off.
One of the positives to take from the injury situation is that when the players return they will be fresh and really go at it in a period when most players will be fatigued from such a long stretch for all of the teams. I’d had to be the player defending Sanchez his first game game :-).