Mohamed Elneny says he’s happy to be ‘back home’ with his Arsenal family after returning to first team action in the 2-0 win over Hull City.
The midfielder set off for the African Cup of Nations in Gabon after the Gunners win against Crystal Palace on New Year’s Day and missed seven domestic games in total as Egypt embarked on a run to the final where they were defeated were by Cameroon.
Injuries to Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey, and a four-game suspension for Granit Xhaka, exacerbated Elneny’s untimely absence as the Gunners lost further ground in the title race with two defeats to Watford and Chelsea.
Eager to make up for lost time, Elneny told Arsenal Player that he’s eager to help his boss and teammates by getting back to work.
“Back here, I feel I am in my home,” the 24-year-old said. “We are one family and you work really hard with people who really love you.
“That made me adapt quickly, and helped me to start training immediately as I felt that the team really needs me now. I don’t want a vacation or a time off, I want to work hard and play with the team.
“Everything is going fine here. We all love our coach and we don’t concentrate on anything other than the next game. All our focus is on compete for all of the available titles including the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League so that we can achieve something together.
“That’s why beating Hull was so important, because we have an important Champions League game coming up. It means we will now travel with confidence on our side and that is extremely important before a big game like this.”
Arsenal will travel to Germany tomorrow afternoon ahead of Wednesday evening’s clash with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena.
Absolutely love this guy.
I love this guy too! Just watch him for a few minutes – he’s incredible and never stops running!
Full of himself. Time to let him go. Maybe we can get 5 mil for him before the Jan transfer window closes.
Welcome to the future!
Amazing
10/10 for the troll attempt. Bravo.
Researching for a role on AFTV.
I think you’re a shoo-in 🙂
Thanks. It’s pretty hard to practice shouting though ever since I broke the ‘caps’ button on my Amiga 500.
It may not have crossed your mind but the January transfer window closed in January!
That so many people took this seriously is a sad indictment on our fan base ? Especially as Arseblog is meant to have some of the smarter ones!
Even the smart ones have problems reading sarcasm or ironi when the irony and sarcasm is quite common criticisms of players in general. When there is no indication at all that it is in fact an attempt at comedy. Except ofcourse it’s mid february but that didnt really differ from the utter stupidity(or sarcasm) in the rest of the post. It’s not hard to make it clear it’s an attempt at sarcasm or irony or whatever you just add a face of some kind like 😉
Love this ! COYG
Great to have him back. Different qualities, of course – Gilberto was more combative for a start – but dare I say it, his calming, no-frills (not meant as an insult) presence reminds me a little bit of our Invisible Wall.
Great to have Elneny and Xhaka available for selection again. I wonder if Arsene may try and go a bit more solid against Bayern for the first leg. Personally I’d like to see a line up of Ospina, Koscielney, Mustafi, Gibbs, Bellerin, Xhaka, Elneny, Ox, Welbeck, Perez and Sanchez. Yes I know no Ozil, but when he isn’t on song he almost becomes a liability in defence and it’s like playing with 10 men. A shift of formation to a 4 3 3 with the players above might work well for us.
I like that lineup, but I am thinking Wenger will not risk bringing both Xhaka and Elneny in the same game from their absences.
Yep! Stole my thunder! Totally agree.
Couldn’t agree more! I’d like to see Ozil and Theo come off the bench to create more pressure against a tired Bayern team.
Ozil seems to take it personal and hates Bayern in general. Having an angry Ozil come off the bench I think will be great! Thoughts?
I like the lineup, but will be a voice of dissent and still go for Ozil.
For me, this is Europe, Bayern won’t sit in their box, and he offers so much as an outlet from defense to take pressure off, hold up play, and exploit the greater space Bayern will leave in the middle and in front of their back line when they attack. This is more his type of match.
Give Ox a breather on the bench, because we’ll need cover at CM positions, and put him back on for the FA cup this weekend.
Looks like a great counter attacking away from home line up.
This is what i thought past 24 hours & now I know I am not the only one thinking about this exciting lineup.
Ospina
Hector kos mustafi nacho
Ox coq xhaka
Sanchez mesut(false 9) Danny
We’ll need a 3 man midfield vs Bayern that’s for sure…..
It can be alternated with mesut in the midfield, Danny and ox on either side of Sanchez upfront.
Giroud and Lucas impact subs.
PS:- most important part though, is leaving Ramsey and Theo in London. They don’t have it in them to be involved in games of such magnitude.
Arsene missed a trick by not selling Ramsey(could ve been worth £40mn as some reports suggested) when barca were linked 2 yrs ago.
this line up is spot on. pace, power, aggression, willingness to track back, we come away with a draw and try to get something from the home leg. i think we need a city away jan 2015 type performance tomorrow.
Tidy enough player but please don’t ever, ever partner him with Coquelin ever again.
Given the Coq’s recent form, might be worth giving Elneny a run out in that position though. But he does need to get a little…scrappier? Combative? He’s a better all-around footballer than Coquelin but if he wants to make the DM role his own he needs a little more fight about his game.
I like the thought of Xhaka and Elneny sharing the scrappiness between them with Ox breaking from deep. Know there’s been A LOT of hype around Kante this season (the welcome Piers Morgan bashing aside, Gary Lineker’s entire timeline is basically a fan page of his), but you don’t necessarily need one orthodox ‘destroyer’ as long as there’s an understanding and discipline between each midfielder about sharing the defensive responsibility between them. I’ve really wanted to see Xhaka-Elneny consistently for a while now, and Ox’s encouraging performances there must be giving Wenger some pause for thought as far as Wednesday… Read more »
Id like to see him partnering Granit on Wednesday with Perez getting start
Great to have you back, Mo. Your words make for good sound bites. Let’s see if you and the team can back them up with a good performance away at the Allianz Arena. Onwards and upwards.
Love the guy, a great attitude and a valuable member of the squad. Not only that, but he can score in big games.
Yup,Last season in UCL he had scored vs Barcelona an assisted ALEX Sanchez.?
I’m sure he means that in the most humble way possible! Great hard working attitude and a real team player… you can see that on the pitch! Hoping its him and Xhaka on the pitch Wednesday, need some good passing players to relive the pressure. COYG!
Lots to come from this bloke. I can see him becoming an ever present on the team sheet.
Santori hasn’t shown up yet to tell us all how bang average Elneny is?
Poor guy has never forgiven him for effectively ushering Flamini out the door…
And I’m sure he’ll write 12 pages too.
Starting with “As l mentioned before…”.
I have no problem with him being confident in his ability. I just wish he could pass it on to Ozil.
Had no idea he was only 24. He might very well prove to be one of Arsene Wenger’s smartest transfers in recent years.
I really don’t understand the negative stuff about Ozil. I was there on Saturday and although he wasn’t at his best he ran and ran both to cover and break. It would be good to compare his statistics with Theo. Elneny ran a lot too when he came on but I don’t remember him getting the ball very much. I do think a strong midfield in Munich would be a good thing and hopefully one in which no one gets sent off. Do they still have the Dutch Diver in their team.
really didnt seem to be that ozil had a bad game, but ask the woman in front of me and everyone was rubbish, we really do have some miserable fans, every game at the emirates ill hear them, we could be winning 3-0 and theyll still be some misery guys crying about a misplaced pass or something, if you dont get any joy from football, just stay at home and not ruin the atmosphere
Have you noticed many of them go with 10 minutes left and us hanging on and needing all the support we can get?
Ozil has been mediocre his whole Arsenal career. He had a good spell at the very beginning & an awesome spell pre Christmas last season but very naff pretty much the rest of the time.
Guys is a class act! Would love to see him team up with Xhaka for Bayern. With the team firing on all cylinders, we can take them