Olivier Giroud could be involved in Arsenal’s squad for tomorrow’s visit of Chelsea, but Aaron Ramsey is likely to be sidelined for a few more weeks with his hamstring injury.
Speaking at his pre-game press conference at London Colney, the boss revealed his squad’s latest team news.
“We have no new injuries. Olivier Giroud has a test today to see if he could be involved. He had a good training session yesterday.
“Aaron is still struggling with his hamstring, I don’t think he will be available for Basel or Burnley…before the break he won’t be available.
“It’s always difficult to pick my team because everybody is doing well. It’s positive. We have a balanced matured squad and competition in every position.
Going into more detail on Giroud and Ramsey, he added: “He [Giroud] is a little bit [ahead of schedule], we’ll see how he comes out of today’s training session.
“We had a few disappointments [with Ramsey], he was close to joining in again. He’s not far, but we have to be careful
“I’m not really concerned. It’s nothing major, I’m a bit more cautious than I would be. If he was ready to play I’d involve him in the squad.
“He has a small grade one hamstring, but he’s not completely free in his mind to push completely. We stop him every time he has a little pain. He’s in the last, last, last days of his rehab. While he’s not completely comfortable we don’t push him.”
Better safe than sorry. We have enough squad depth to deal with their absences.
we would certainly saw last season in the first half ramsey risked and pushed to play, now time have changed, we have elneny and xhaka who are on the bench that talks a lot with the depth we have this year. And we all forgot on Welbeck which will be another great options after new year, I still think he will be ahead of walcott and ox starting it it will be great to see a front line of alexis – lucas- welbz
…and lets not forget Chuba is really knocking on the door, based on his EFL performance. he looked and played with more maturity, purpose and potency on the ball compared to last season imo. i think he is also ready.
Not a fan of chuba. He has a wiff of balotelli about him.
How you’ve come to that conclusion I can’t understand.
chuba had a good game.as a striker he was not good for us in preseason or even for hull city. all the goals he scored were tap ins and against lesser opponents. but when deployed as a winger it brought the best in him. he have good close control and can score from the wings. he make those runs behind the lines that walcot used to make . he can be a good backup for us.
And what a great thing it is that we can now say that. Makes a change from previous years.
Hoping Giroud’s fit as I think he would probably suit the game better than the others. I imagine we’re going to have a lot of the ball and will play most of the game in the game in their half, so having a target will be important. Though Sanchez’ goal return isn’t too be scoffed at since he’s been playing up top. I imagine Lucas will come on just after the hour mark to stretch them out a bit, hopefully they will be chasing the game by then. Very interested to see what’s done in the midfield. There will be… Read more »
Anyone think the sending off of Giroud has contributed to his slow return? It was crazy that he wasn’t focusing on getting goals and got booked talking to the ref and getting involved in pushing.
Getting involved in pushing? He literally did nothing wrong. Wtf are you going on about?!
See my reply below and let me know what you think.
‘Giroud will suit the game better than others’ How so? Hasn’t exactly been banging them in against Chelsea in the past. Nor can we afford to have Alexis up top either when Ox or Iwobi might be light on their tracking back duties on the wing, so Lucas has to start- best time when he’s going to be confident- and Xhaka needs to start. Coquelin/Cazorla doing it against Watford is a bit different from a team with a midfield’s that actually good- let’s not forget how overrun we were against PSG, how often Coquelin looks a passenger in the build… Read more »
Disregarding what we might prefer (to see Granit start the game) one should know Arsene better. Although I completely agree with you, I am sure we’ll start with coqzorla with Xhaka on the bench. I reckon he want change starting 11 much from what we’ve seen against Hull. Eventualy, Giroud might start instead of Ox and that’s all. However, we’re good and if we decide to give it a go we might finally beat chelsea. COYG!
As someone said over on a different article, I think a team of Xhaka and Elneny as the 2 midfielders with Santi, Mesut and Alexis in front of them is probably our best team and actually not too dissimilar from the Invincibles set up. Xhaka (Vieira) and Elneny (Gilberto) provide a solid base, but both try to get the ball moving quickly, Xhaka with long balls, Elneny with one/two touch passes. This quick turnover isn’t something that Coqzorla do particularly well, and for everything they do bring to the team, it’s something we generally miss against deep lying defences. It… Read more »
i have a strange suspicion that wenger is trying hard to make sanchez as striker to work. and that means we will see less giroud from this season onwards. a game as pivotal as psg and wenger starts sanchez at top , that defenitely tells us something about his intention towards giroud. and we even bought a new striker . i think wenger is starting to lose faith in giroud
I hope not because we need a big unit up there and Giroud provides that.
We have really missed the option giroud brings to our game
It’s that time of the year when arsene tried out new things.. we’ve be crying out for a different alternative to Giroud.. I for one, am up for keeping the experiment going a little longer.. if it goes well, we could be world beaters
Giroud certainly needs to start against Chelsea. Can’t see Alexis or Perez (unexperienced) up front.
Chelsea are the sort of team against which we need a big, physical target-man. I don’t think either of Sanchez or Lucas would be effective. Whenever we’ve played Sanchez up top against a packed defence he’s been invisible, which has always had the consequence of hIm coming back into the midfield to collect the ball, something that deep-sitting teams are very comfortable with.
Again, how many goals has Giroud scored against Chelsea before?
What we need is someone quick enough to roast that aging defence, someone who won’t shy away from a scrap and someone who knows their position. Lucas hits all 3.
At least no one’s got a broken face.
Not so fast. Don’t try and tell me Costa looks like that without having suffered some form of horrendous facial trauma!
Maybe he’s got Barcelona DNA?
Ape DNA!
it wasn’t girds fault he got sent off it was marquinos he pushed giroud into verati who fell over watch the video
what is it with Arsenal fans always blaming our own players instead of defending them
COYG
And the first yellow card when he was talking to the ref? Any blame attaching to Giroud for that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqalpHcsdmM and this push that proceeded the sending off?
Happy to defend any of our players when they are putting their efforts into doing well for the team.
I wouldn’t put it past Wenger to hold Giroud back from playing until he is sorted out mentally.
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/article/2000217118/referee-oliver-takes-charge-of-arsenal-vs-chelsea-match-gunners-fans-are-concerned
Do you want someone on the pitch that isn’t focussed on playing given the referee tomorrow?
Ok Giroud does get frustrated when refs allow him to be fouled or climbed on because he doesn’t fall over easily but then they pull him up for every little thing and most times nothing at all. I don’t blame him, and he does try to control his frustrations once he has got the booking! It’s supposed to be football not cheats trying to get their opponents sent off!
Would help if our fans got the players name right tho! GIROUD. <3 OG12 <3
I would rather see Perez start this match if Giroud is healthy as he is coming in with momentum from the midweek match and I think his movement and flexibility can give Chelsea trouble. To me Luis struggles the most with movement of the strikers (think back to German vs Brasil) and Giroud is more of a post up player vs Perez who will draw the CDs out of the middle opening it up for those like Sanchez, Ozil and Iwobi to get into those dangerous spots to shoot from.
Ramsey “of course, is a little bit not ready”