Nacho Monreal’s injured right hamstring will keep him sidelined for at least two more weeks.
The Arsenal medical team’s latest bulletin says the Spaniard won’t take part in first-team training for a fortnight, which suggests he’s had a setback during the Interlull. Their last bulletin stated he was being assessed ahead of the game with Wolves on 11 November. He’s not played since we beat Fulham 5-1 in early October.
Sead Kolasinac is fit and will likely deputise at Bournemouth on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Stephan Lichtsteiner is still recovering from his hamstring injury, Laurent Koscielny is still working his way back to full fitness and Danny Welbeck is obviously out for the long-term.
It looks as though Dinos Mavropanos, who we’ve not seen this season, is also struggling to overcome his problematic groin. He’s now expected back in December having been pencilled in for a November return. Hmm. Not good for him.
Shame, he is one of most peoples’ favourites. Hope it is only two weeks, though suspect it is longer before he is on the pitch.
A real miss down that left hand side. Hope to see him back in real soon.
Fack. Kola is quite simply, not good enough. Not too fussed about Litch, as I’m hoping this provides an opportunity for AMN to become RB back up (it’s interesting he’s only been used in wide positions in his short appearances. I think he has all the tools to be an excellent fullback, and I’d prefer a different profile for our DMs now). Biggest shame is young Dino. Still young, but as our defence has yet to fully form, I think he would’ve had a chance to forge his way as a decent squad option for now. But no two ways… Read more »
Biggest shame to me is clearly Monreal not healing up. These next two weeks are going to be important for points and momentum for a busy December.
I think you mean “opinion.”
i llike kola and monreal as well. while they both have weakness, they both have advantages as well if they are playing against the right team. monreal for instance lacks pace but is very good at keeping possesion and create chance which is useful against teams that sit deep. kola who has improved defensively a lot is good at defending and marauding foward if there is space in front of him to run which he can do against teams that attack us like against liverpool. but obviously we cannot rely on these, and should buy a proper left back that… Read more »
Jesus. This seems never ending.
The “two week” black hole is back
We may be at the start of a new era, but it seems one irritating thing hasn’t changed from the late Wenger years; our injuries seem to all be restricted to the same area of the pitch!! Maddening that Holding, Bellerin and Mustafi are the only defenders in our entire squad who have been consistently available since the start of the season. Have to give us a fair bit of credit for coming through that period pretty strongly, but let’s see some of the youngsters in the Europa League now. Bellerin getting overplayed and suffering the same outcome as Nacho… Read more »
Xhaka is the real tank out of all our players. The guy is always available.
Maybe they should all grow their hair and go vegan
In the January transfer window we need to get a quality left back and right winger as well as moving a few players on like Ramsey, kola and possibly mustafi
You’re overreacting. Unless Montreal doesn’t return for the entire month of December, I don’t see any reason why we should go buy another LB. Monreal and Kol are more than capable when healthy. If we get a quality LB, how do we appease three solid players when it comes to playing time? No…spend the money elsewhere.
Well, by selling Kola as he said.
However, I don’t think it’s very likely to happen.
The good thing is Kola didn’t cost any fee when we got him, so it’s not like we would “lose” a lot by selling him “under value” whatever that may be
Kolasinac was terrible against Wolves. Bad positioning off the ball, couldn’t pass, wasn’t tracking his man.
No wonder he got hooked and Xhaka put in his place. I was at the game and he was so bad I thought if Montreal gets back he fit he might not appear again before he is sold.
Ah, my bad on not seeing about selling Kola. I’m not a fan of doing that either, however. I feel like he’s more than capable of backing up Monreal when healthy. Outside of injuries, LB isn’t even on my radar of issues for us to deal with. Monreal will be back in 2-3 weeks and we’ll be set.
Not happy that Nacho is out.
But I’m glad that Sead gets another chance to prove himself.
I like him fundamentally as a player, and if Nacho came back after that dreadful performance last time out, it could’ve been very very bad for his future as a red n whiter. Go on now Sead, give em hell.
He’s going to proceed to have another 60% passing. In many ways, like Mustafi, he’s a quintessential Wenger defender; better going forward than actually defending.
Guess it’s Bramall time! Be scared Trippier.Be VERY scared.
FUCK
To me Nacho was our best player last year. His consistent quality is a bedrock for us. Top 4 out of the question without a quality LB it’s that simple. Kola could do fine on Sunday and this would still be the case, because I don’t see him anywhere near Monreal’s level, and he doesn’t put in reliably good performances.
I’d be curious to know how we compare to other clubs regarding number of injuries.
Twice as many injuries as the club that comes after us (Chelsea I believe?). At least that’s what I remember hearing last season. We still have the same team physician, not sure why we didn’t do a total clean-out of our medical personnel? I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle, players are just as likely to get injured regardless of who is taking care of them.
We did this already about 2 years ago, and had seemed to work…. HAD
That’s not good news with the Spuds on the horizon – typical…
Step forward AMN, a good man to have in a crisis.
I wonder if Koscielny will be fit enough for the trip to Vorskla next Thursday, might be handy to have him on the trip if Emery takes a young looking squad out to the wilds of Ukraine?
I’d prefer Niles over Kola at this point in time. It’s not good news when a newly promoted greenhorn midfielder is a better choice at leftback then the guy we bought specifically to fill that position. And Niles is the better choice, his defending and his passing is superior to Kola’s, though Kola is a beast going forward.
Let’s hope Kola steps up. But if he has another poor performance against Bournemouth (65% passing say) what do we do for spuds and ManU? Stick with him? Slot in AMN? Go to a back three with Rob/Mustafi/Sokratis and let him play wing back? Then we’d have to drop one of our front four because I’d leave Torreira and Xhaka in central midfield. I really don’t know but I don’t think we can have one of our back four giving away the ball so much against big teams.
The away fixture at Bournemouth was one of the lowest points of last season (Arsenal lost 2-1). The team seemingly played without any plan. As confidence slipped, even the effort seemed tame.
So far this season, Arsenal has won exactly the same number of points as in last season’s corresponding games (excluding the matches against promoted and relegated teams). If the team is really improved, they should display it Sunday. I would welcome even one point.
Why is no one talking about the fact Monreal’s contract is up in 6 months, what is the clubs plan?
Losing Monreal & having Kolasinac as first choice is a disaster. Don’t nt know how much he would cost but perhaps Ben Chilwell could be the answer.
Kolasinac was good against Liverpool but then a bit erratic next game.
We need to keep playing him. He’s just back ft on a long lay oi ff so a bit of confidence and consistency is needed.
Otherwise we also have AMN.
It’s time to plan for post Monreal anyway.
He has also had his moments where he has been positional suspect.