After what has been a relative hectic schedule recently, somewhat exacerbated by the thin squad having to play a lot of games, Arsene Wenger says he’ll be giving his players a little break ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup clash with Sunderland.
The Arsenal manager will be looking for his players to recharge their batteries before the game against Sam Allardyche’s side, and before the next Premier League fixture with Liverpool at Anfield on January 13th.
“Of course I will give them a rest,” he said. “I will give them a couple of days, an extra rest, but you never know what shape they come back in. It depends what you do when you have a rest.
“You can come back more tired!”
It seems unlikely that any of the Arsenal players will do anything to jeopardise their fitness, with Wenger extolling the virtues of experience in his current squad.
“I think we are more experienced than the teams I had when I moved into the stadium here,” he said.
“On our day we could play everybody off the park and when you had to dig deep you experience it was a bit more difficult. It was different.”
That is good news. We haven’t played very well since we beat Manchester City. A rested squad and Alexis back might spark the team back into life just in time for some rather tough and tasty fixtures.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Arsène change all 11 (if we have enough players) for that cup game on Saturday.
bring on the JEFF , cant wait.
Something along the lines of..
Ospina, Debuchy (probably not), Gabriel, Chambers, Gibbs, Arteta, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Iwobi, Reine-Adelaide, Campbell
Please no, last time we done that we lost 3-0 to Sheffield Wednesday and were played off the park! 4/5 changes and one step closer to a hat trick of fa cups ?
sunderland will go with their best 11 and hit us hard, so one or two youngsters please,but pack the back with experience. 3 cups in a row LETS GO.
Is el neny getting time off too?
Is el neny getting time off too? Because he must be exhausted waiting for the work permit
My other post isn’t showing for some reason (this probably won’t either I’m guessing)
I’d like to think that debuchy would get time off too!
I’m assuming ‘ Sam Allardyche ‘ is intentional and not a typo.
That’s what the Walrus called himself in a famous comment bemoaning the fact that the good jobs go to foreign managers.
Coq is up and running. How fantastic it would be to have a player back early. A new experience.
If I recall, Giroud returned early from injury last year. Good times.
This is usually the beginning of his late-stage rehabilitation. That buts him on schedule for mid-to-late Feb, as expected.
I wouldn’t read into that as him coming back earlier, though there’s always a chance.
Happy days are coming COYG
Think we’ll get more and more soundbites like these from Wenger where he hints at not only the mental toughness of this side, but the lack thereof during the lean times. We’re still able to Arsenal games (see Zagreb, Saints…) but I think Wenger really enjoys this crop.
I hope they don’t come out more exhausted than they were… Thank God is not Friday.
well deserved. hope we see some youth in action next weekend
hopefully
Hope they use there rest days properly
Alexis Sanchez is up and running too. A fully re-charged Alexis Sanchez that is.
A fully re charged Alexis could help us transition off fosil fuels.
Isn’t Flamini already doing that?
Where do you think he gets that levulic acid from or whatever it’s called? It’s no coincidence that they finally managed to produce the stuff right after Sanchez joined…
If you watch the Newcastle game, we were far off our best and Ramsey was too far forward, but it was more even a contest than made out by many. Trouble was we did not have enough control of the game. It did not mean we were outmuscled like against Soton. Giroud should be mentioned for his overall play and another very good (determined) assist. Also Flamini. Plenty of imbecils will slate him as (again) culprit for our poor performances (much like they like to with Per). But he put in a massive shift in absence of Ramsey at times.… Read more »