Arsenal have confirmed that Olivier Giroud, Laurent Koscielny and Mesut Ozil have returned to first team training having returned from their respective summer breaks.
The trio were granted an extended break following their exploits at Euro 2016 where Germany reached the semi-finals and France came runners-up.
All three players are due to sit out Sunday’s opening game of the season against Liverpool, although Arsene Wenger could be forced to call on Laurent Koscielny given the club’s current defensive crisis.
Gabriel was today ruled out for up to eight weeks while Per Mertesacker could sit out five months. Carl Jenkinson and Danny Welbeck, both out with knee injuries, represent the other long-term absentees.
In all likelihood, it’ll take a couple of weeks to get Ozil, Giroud and Koscielny up to speed making the game with Watford on 27 August a realistic target for them to reclaim a starting berth.
The season hasn’t started yet and my nerves are all over the place already.
The season hasn’t started and my heart is already broke
Hahaha.. Every true gunner know the feeling.. You are not alone
It may be out of fashion but I am nervously excited!! Come on you rip roaring goal scoring Gunners! 🙂
I’d rather risk another opening day defeat than put Koscielny out there and end up with another long term sideline just because we didn’t trust the other players in the squad to do a job. Big picture here to me says rest them till they’re ready and put our faith in the others.
I can’t wait to see these three back in action. I got a feeling Giroud is going to have a great season.
He won’t have if we don’t buy another striker to back him up. It’ll be the same as every year. He’ll be free-scoring until February then suffer from burnout and not score any more for the rest of the season.
Of course, I hope you’re right and he does have an outstanding season.
So we’ve said for 4 seasons now. Apart from not being elite, Wenger is making him suffer by not getting a striker. He’s good, but like Lauren said, lacks the x factor. Relying on only him this season will be very risky.
While I would love to add a striker like Auba from Dortmund, I thought it was interesting to note the following regarding Giroud and Alexis considering everyone seems to love Alexis, yet so many seem to be unimpressed by Giroud… and some even bash him like he sucks. According to whoscored.com, in the last 2 seasons: Giroud 2014/15 + 2015/16 EPL: 30 Goals in 4,298 Minutes = 143.3 minutes per goal Alexis 2014/15 + 2015/16 EPL: 29 Goals in 5,380 Minutes = 185.5 minutes per goal I use minutes rather than games as judging by games seems a rather terrible… Read more »
They play in different positions though.
It’s cause Giroud plays up top and Alexis plays out wide. It seems rather obvious that the guy up top should be scoring more often.
That was exactly my first thought. But when I started to think about it a bit more, I began to think about where Alexis tends to position himself on the pitch and I started to think this would actually be less of a factor. I pulled up some heat maps of Alexis and they seemed to confirm my thoughts that Alexis has a strong tendency to drift into the middle, especially when we get towards the opponents box. Thus he really isn’t your typical winger who hugs the touchline and gets crosses in. He seems to find himself in the… Read more »
Why didnt you compare their assist and see who is better, by the way Giroud is an attacker while Alexis is aa attacking midfieldr.
That’s not a bad idea. So if I add in assists, Giroud has 9 in the last two EPL seasons vs Alexis having 12. So Goals + Assists combined would be Giroud having 39 in 4,298 minutes for 110.2 mins/per and Alexis has 41 in 5,380 minutes for 131.2 minutes per. Do we really consider Alexis an Attacking Mid? I see him as a Winger/Striker hybrid. Much in the mold of the modern day wingers who tend to be just as in and around the goal box as the strikers… similar to the Ronaldos, Messis, Neymar types. They start out… Read more »
Never believe statistics unless you have faked them yourself. On paper we had no chance of going a whole season undefeated
Giroud is what he is – a decent striker. Nothing more, nothing less. It gets annoying when people make it out to look like he’s Bergkamp or something while being under appreciated. He is a good option to have in a squad, not just one to push you to the next level. Alexis is and has done that. That’s the difference between both. Alexis can conjure that individual bit of magic himself, Giroud hardly does that.
No matter what metric you use to judge, his numbers are just not that great never mind elite and doesn’t scream underrated to me.
I don’t think we can risk not playing koscielny against Liverpool. You could say the same about Leicester(a) the following week, this makes me very nervous! If we lose him long term we stand no chance!
Having no chance if we lose him long term is why we can’t really afford to play him against Liverpool…
Playing two kids and getting spanked on day 1 could be just as detrimental. Either way it’s going to be a hard decision is all I’m saying
Would be a risk in my opinion to start Koscielny. I say play Monreal and Holding in the center. (or at least that’s my couch potato opinion). How many times has Wenger brought players back a bit too early to see them subsequently out for half a season?
Either way it’s a big risk, and we probably shouldn’t be in this position in the first place. Let’s hope we do get someone good in!
I know, right… god damn you Wenger for injuring 2 of our senior CB’s and for Koscielny for going all the way to the final!
Not Monreal, Chambers?
Monreal & Chambers I mean.. baptism of fire if Holding plays!
I rate Chambers is a more reliable choice until Holding has settled in.
Monreal and chambers are my preference for the cb spots on sunday- that is unless kos comes back early to captain the side. I’m of the opinion we’ll see number 6 in the starting lineup come kickoff, with chambers alongside, as we will need monreal on the left.
These are three arsenal senior, system knowledgeable players who even on vacation should be on a keep fit training program…..I would call on which ever to stop a gap….then again Wenger knows.
what I don’t get is why they came back so late. French defense in the euro final was Lloris ( already match fit) Sagna ( he played against us sunday) Umtiti ( back with barca almost a fortnight ago) and the old evra who did the summer tour with juventus! So why did the Kos got extended break ? Has he picked up an injjury during euros that we don’t know about? It’s not like we dont know we are short of experience in central defense; So he will rush him and risk the injury. Bad management for me.
Maybe to get over the mental disappointment of losing a Euro Final on home soil.
Both players had physical worries during the euro. Kos was a doubt for the final, and Giroud had to get out after 70mn from the quarter to the final.
There are various reasons. I will highlight a few of the possibilities: – We are Arsenal, so we need to be overly cautious bringing players back too soon! – Koscielny had an incredible demanding season last year, playing through injury even through to the Euros. – CBs don’t need as much physical preparation for the season as midfielders, wing backs and wingers do – so he could afford to let Kos recover fully, then a brief 1-2 week preseason just as the season kicks off. – We had 2 senior CBs in BFG and Gabriel, plus Holding and Chambers all… Read more »
Yes our new cb cf and winger
Yep, just like three new signings
Still think it’s risky to play Kos on Sunday. The last thing we want is him getting injured. So we just got to try ride this one out without him. He can come back against leicester.
It’s risky…we play against two aggressive, high intensity team.
Is it me or does the HFB look like Gabriel with a beard?
Giroud to Wenger:Thanks boss for not signing another striker (Again) ?
It’s not a risk to play any of them on Sunday after 4 weeks out, they will have done a small amount of fitness work in this time and then some hard graft this week. I would only play Kos to be fair, but then rest him after that. That will be the key, he’s not rushing him back early if he plays one game and then has another week or two out.
I think we will have to play Koscielny.
One of Chambers, Holding or Bielik will have to play beside him.
I don’t think Koscielny has gone on a drinking binge and become Marlon Brando ala Colonel Kurtz all of a sudden so given a week, he may not be up to speed but he should be physically fine enough to compete.
Injury risk is at all levels and we cannot afford to bubble wrap players either with the issues we have.