Arsene Wenger has provided the latest team news update ahead of Saturday evening’s Premier League clash with Watford.
After the Interlull there are always worries about how players might be affected, and we saw Shkodran Mustafi limp off against Azerbaijan with what looked like a serious thigh strain.
On the German, the manager said, “We lost Mustafi for 4-6 weeks. He won’t be back until after the next international break.”
On the rest, Wenger continued, “I haven’t seen everybody yet, some players are coming back today like Alexis Sanchez.
“The minor problem we have is with Sead Kolasinac. He has a hip problem, we’ll check him today.”
Wenger confirmed that Mesut Ozil and Danny Welbeck had recovered from minor injuries and would be available for the trip to Vicarage Road, while there remain doubts over Laurent Koscielny.
“Koscielny has a definite final test tomorrow,” he said, “but at the moment he’s not available.
“He trained on his own, and the first signs are positive, so we’ll test him again. If he survives the test, he can play.”
Positive news on welbeck.
Good stuff. I do feel we are starting to see the benifits of shads work.
“If he survives the test, he can play.”
I think that might be the problem right there Arsene – your tests are too fuckin’ hard! You’re killing our central defenders with these tests.
It’s not an IQ test.
Would you rather he got tested in a game and failed the test?
I rather he continue to recover and rest for 2 more weeks before putting him through the test. We have enough back up. And it is times like this the back up should step up.
I’m reminded of Debuchy’s last test. All 3 minutes of it.
When Arsene uses the word “Survive’ instead of “pass’ you know It’s bad.
Survive- continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship.
We knew he was nursing an ongoing Achilles injury all last summer, but again we decided to wing it.
Sense of humour failure here for the majority of voters.
Was going to make the same point about “if he survives the test…” but when I saw the amount of downvotes you’d accrued, it’s became obvious the interweb does not do humor.
Dont worry mate. Its just a test. Not like a test drive where the tester rides kocielny. No not like that. Silly u..
Defence looks to be our problem at the moment. Hope we can cobble something together.
So our fit defenders (including wing-backs) now consist of Holding, BFG, Monreal and Bellerin.
Will we be forced to revert to a back four?
I’d put Giroud in the defence. He can play and give his all anywhere including goal Ive heard.
What about Coquelin and Chambers?
Coquelin isn’t listed on physioroom.com among injured anymore, there hasn’t been any update on arsenal.com since beginning of September (yet it said “3 weeks” back in the day)
According to physioroom, Chambers should be back for Watford.
Maybe we’re forced to revert to back four?
Coquelin was back in training on Monday
Good to have Welbz back. He may not be as clinical as we’d like but his hassling will unsettle the opposition defence and pave the way for a laca strike. Depending on his state of mind/body, we may finally get to see Ozil, Alexis, and Lacazette start a match.
No fear….we have Jack….
I’d like to see a Lacajack strike against watford
Kolasinac is a doubt… Bellerin on the left it is then
or Monreal
No Monreal
If there’s a doubt with Laurent I wouldn’t risk it. I hope Kolasinac plays! Hope tank destroys the Watford defence!
Kolasitank!
Certainly wouldn’t think Sanchez is going to be in kind of good state of mind to play a full match. He must still be devastated from failing to qualify for the WC and due to Ospina giving up that goal on the indirect free kick late that he should have just let into the net which allowed Peru to move ahead of Chile.
Bollocks