Arsene Wenger says he’s not sure when Santi Cazorla will return to action. The Spanish international suffered a kick to his Achilles against Ludogorets, which forced him out of today’s 0-0 draw with Boro.
Asked at his post-game press conference about a time frame for his return, he said, “I don’t know when he’ll be back, we have to see how he recovers.”
AW: “Cazorla – I don’t know when he’ll be back, we have to see how he recovers. Giroud could be in the squad on Tuesday.”
— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) October 22, 2016
Olivier Giroud, who would have been useful today, could be part of Tuesday night’s EFL Cup squad.
Hopefully it’s not too serious regarding Cazorla, but he has been plagued with Achilles problems in the last few months, causing him to miss much of last season even after his knee ligament problem had been solved.
It also makes the decision not to appeal Granit Xhaka’s red card more curious. Anyway, fingers crossed for Santi.
Kick in the balls, he was missed badly today
FUCK
🙁
Enter the Ramsey.
Shit! I think we really missed his creativity today. Hope it’s not serious.
Gunner need him back asap!
He trained on Friday with the team didn’t he ? I thought he was not risked to day so he can be fully fit for next weekend.
Yes, the penultimate sentence has been going through my head since I saw today’s team sheet.
It was a concern to me when Wenger was playing Santi the full 90 minutes in match after match so early in the season especially when we had a healthy Coquelin and Xhaka both available not to mention Elneny. He is an important player for us for sure, but at his age and recent injury history he needs to be rested as much as anyone else.
Oh my god he’s 31 not 67.
I’ve been so worried about overplaying him too, Mark. Hopefully he just gets a lil 3 week break that will allow El to get a run in the side.
Hopefully nothing to serious but it’d be nice to have Jackie boy right about now.
How far away is Welsh Jesus?
I believe Welsh Jesus is not available for the EFL Cup match but may be ready for a few minutes against Sunderland.
while Cazorla and Coquelin have struck up a good partnership and we missed him today, I think it had more to do with the guys not being at the races and no plan B with no Giroud on the bench. Cazorla was in the team in the fortuitous win away at Burnley and Arsenal didn’t win that day because of him that day.
Please stop with this nonsense about appealing Xhaka’s red card. It wasn’t appealed because we were never going to win an appeal and risked an additional game being added on for a frivolous appeal. Plus we would lose any goodwill when we do have a legitimate case as in the situation with Gabriel last year.
Quite right and well said! It may be worth a cheeky last minute appeal though…?
🙂
Crazy that we are short in midfield of all places.
Impossible to have a back up magician, hurry back Santi!
We lost the league when Santi was out last year. Come back soon Santi. We need you.
“It also makes the decision not to appeal Granit Xhaka’s red card more curious.”
I agree, in the end, it should have been, but for the fact that 3-match adjudication was a farce of the highest order given for a foul that met, in no way whatsoever, any of the criteria for a 3-match suspension.
Oh, and where’s Moss this weekend? … A joke. Then again, we’d no doubt have ended up with a 4-match ban if we’d appealed.
While it’s easy to say this in hindsight – this is poor management on Wenger’s part.
1. He played Santi v Ludogorets even when having Xhaka on the bench
2. Xhaka’s red card not appealed, leaving us with only the more defensive-minded Elneny and Coquelin v Boro; arguably cost us the match.
Agree. I think AW will regret a little his managerial decision to perhaps teach Xhaka a lesson, if that was the case.(And I think it was.) There is no way he could have guessed Santi would get that knock. All that said Arsene has alluded to managing the squad through their respective health checks and rehabilitation so he has counted on Santi’s stamina. Finally, we can all regret our dependence on individuals but Santi is one of our very top players whose presence or absents, has a tangible effect on how well we play.
Illustrates how fragile the team’s balance is. As I have mentioned repeatedly, Santi is an important cog in the wheel of the team. Without Santi, Coquelin is not as solid. Elneny has his supporters and he did some decent work today but he’s effectiveness is exaggerated where last season Flamini’s (and Ramsey’s) were underplayed. Wenger brought Granit into squad partially to cover Coquelin defensively. I don’t think for one moment Elneny is as solid as the two (nor does he add anything extra like the Ox does going forward) But Granit has also been brought in to cover Santi’s deep… Read more »
Looks like Cazorla is going to be out for a while. I also worry Cazorla is going to be replaced by Ramsey and we start experiencing the same stagnation in the midfield that experienced last year. Ramsey is a terrific player, but he does not give that creative thrust in midfield. You need some one like Cazorla who can quickly release long passes to the forwards which Ramsey struggles to do. With Ramsey in midfield Arsenal struggled last season. I have no issues with him playing in the right side of midfield where there is not much creative onus on… Read more »
Crazy idea? Ozil as deep lying playmaker paired with dm(cq or eln) and Ramsey 10..