Unai Emery is hoping Alex Iwobi and Stephan Lichtsteiner will be available for Wednesday’s clash with Bournemouth after limping off during the 2-0 win over Southampton on Sunday.
Emery had wanted to replace Alex Lacazette with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with 15 minutes remaining but Iwobi picked up a knock just as the Frenchman’s number was being signalled and went off instead.
“I hope it’s only one knock and not a more important injury,” Emery said after the game. “I hope he can play Wednesday.”
Lichtsteiner went down on 55 minutes and immediately signalled to the bench that he couldn’t continue. Without a like-for-like replacement on the bench, Laurent Koscielny was sent on with Shkodran Mustafi moving to right-back.
“Lichtsteiner has back pain but I think he can also be okay for Wednesday,” reported Emery.
If the veteran Swiss isn’t available, it could mean a return for Ainsley Maitland-Niles who has recovered from illness. Emery did suggest yesterday that squad rotation will be important this week with a trip to Wembley to face Sp*rs coming hot on the heels of the visit of the Cherries.
We’ll have updates from the medical team on Tuesday ahead of the boss’ pre-game press conference.
Hopefully Lichsteiner will be fit for Wednesday, as we will need the young legs of AMN against Son on Saturday. I can imagine Pochettino targeting our RB as a point of weakness
Briefly considered some kind of negative remark about Lichtsteiner but he’s actually been quite good in both the last two games
Especially with the way he played before going off injured, it creates a fair question about who to play on Saturday: the slow and cunning Lichsteiner or the pacey and sometimes-naive AMN?
A few days ago I would never have thought the answer could possibly be in doubt.
Exactly. I think hes played well recently. It can take time to settle into English football and people are quick to judge some early performances. Hes lost some pace but you dont play that long for juve without having quality.
AMN will be roasted by Son. I would play Jenkinson instead.
so he could be roasted instead?
Jenkinson sucks.
I think part of Lichsteiner being so improved was that he had a hard working Micki in front of him, with Torreira covering that side as well. Don’t get me wrong he was great, and crossing much improved, but I’m not sure he can do that with Ozil or Laca playing ahead of him on the right.
Get Dr Nick to transplant Lichsteiner’s brain into Jenko’s body.
Jenks lacks technical level. No thanks.
Every player can have a good game here and there. He isn’t good anymore. Now I understand we are playing him because of injury but he shouldn’t have been our #2 rb to begin with.
Reading the blog this morning…….. I also was sorry that Utd picked up some injuries and that Chelsea had issues with discipline ….
Off topic but I think we should be looking at the prem for some solid Centre backs. I watched Bournemouth v Wolves on Saturday and was thoroughly impressed with Nathan Ake — comfy with the ball on his feet, relatively fast, fearless, brave in the tackle and get his head on almost every aerial ball. I have been impressed with his progress for quite sometime now and think he will develop into a Vigril Van Dijk kind of defender and then he would require lots of cash to prise away which will be too much for us. I also like… Read more »
I also find it interesting how no one is linked with Christensen at Chelsea. Looked like a top defender (under one of their previous managers who I’ve now forgotten). Young, composed and probably looking to move after being on the bench so often.
I do not like the not-good-enough-for-competition-but-good-for-Arsenal side of it.
Salah, debryne weren’t good enough for Chelsea, I really like Nathan Ake .
I like Ake but he won’t come cheap, Bournemouth bought him for £20m and I’m pretty sure Chelsea added a sell on/buyback clause. You’re looking at around £40m and given how miserly we seem at the moment I doubt the club would splash that kind of cash on a CB.
It won’t be an upgrade to Mustafi bc we will have to replace Koscielny. Mustafi provided a lot of very good balls out to the front from deep. Plus prob the most headed clearances Blogs would have it that he was turned by redmond. He made the mistake together with Sokratis and,Kolasinac playing the high line but he did the right thing tracking back and covering the angle which made it easier for Leno to make that save. Most likely we will have sokratis, Mustafi and Holding next season plus one more. This could be either of Chambers, Mavropanos or… Read more »
Lichsteiner seems like the type of player who would be good if he got a run of games. Consistency probably suits his style of play.
He also probably benefits from having Mkhi back, and Torreira there. We had a period where the right back was pretty much having to run the entire right side of the pitch themselves. Hector is the only one we have who can come close to doing that, and even then it still shouldn’t be the case.
We are over dependent on Bellerin providing width.
It isolated the cback Chiefly Mustafi.
Mslintat has neglected to rectify the situation last Jan when he could have bought Mahrez.
Such an important week for us. With two wins for us and a draw in Chelsea v Sp*rs, third place would really open up for us. Maybe I’m being overly optimisic, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time Sp*rs bottled it!
Anyone know a good place for streaming in the UK please? I’m sick of these non-televised matches.
Dont know in UK, and this is probably ilegal streaming, but (as much as you don’t like the person) ronaldo7.net is one of the better sites that I’ve used over the past 5-6 years
Trying to answer the streaming site but it’s not appeared…either i have connection problem or it got moderated
totalsportek is what I use here in Germany
Had been using it forever but last week while trying to stream the arsenal game, I noticed it got moderated…
Reddit soccerstreams got shut down so i dunno. I just wanted to say that its crazy you have this problem in the UK. Meanwhile me here in Africa can watch every single game on tv. Even when there are multiple games at the same time.. wtf
Yeah, a few of the other sites I know of got blocked too. But I live somewhere where a subscription costs both arms and both legs so that’s too bad for me..
search cr7 streams – it’s pretty reliable
Ronaldo7 has been shut down by the Prem. No longer post links to games.. really messed up my Sunday.
it used to be , but yesterday there was a message about them not being allowed to list streams anymore. i struggled to find a decent stream yesterday so in the end i gave up and cooked some pasta!
Download aceplayer and go to livefootballol.me acestream links will give you the game in HD.
Thanks everyone for the responses, I’ll give them a go on Wednesday!
Ronaldo7 still works, I tend to use Ripple- go on football sub down then you’ll see whats on. Close popups.
If you want the complete match afterwards, I use https://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/. For live streaming I use https://www.footybite.com/. On Google Chrome I use Nanodefender and Nanoblocker to kill all the popups and I stream it via Chromecast to my television.
Jenko can’t even get a game against Bournemouth? That’s a worse burn than Özil not being physical enough to play against them…
Then again, they do have some pacy wingers, don’t they?
Why didn’t they sell him in January ? I think they don’t even want to face the situation where he gives good performances and challenge for thy position.
He’s a Homegrown player. They can’t have too few of them in the squad…
They have enough homegrown players to satisfy the requirement. It’s sad he isn’t rated by emery to play against BATE. Just to see what he can do. If you aren’t going to give Osei-tutu an opportunity to get his feet wet at least use who you have to see if you can have better play overall. AMN is good for cover for a game or an injury during a game but not for an extended period. It’s like they want to prove that they were right in signing licht and giving him whatever he earns which was a crazy amount… Read more »
He is so good nobody wants him.
Emery prefers Mustafi over him at Rback. Says much about his quality however imagined by add one delusional fans.
Ditto Elneny.
I was on the Jenko bus, and I still love Carl for his love of The Arsenal, but he played against Cardiff and I didn’t think he set the world on fire. If Emery really thought he had any potential he would play him. I expect him to be moved on in the summer, but hopefully it will be to a team that can really make use of him.
Arsenal should focus to buy Douglas costa or Pepe or Martial if he s on sale…needs player who can penetrate individually….so far sead kolasinac is perfect …but a fragile maitland niles is not enough yet
Costa is too old.
Pepe maybe but will see how second half of season pans out.
Martial will stay at United.
Ainsley needs to play in midfield.
“Trio” I’m counting 2?
Might be the AMN mention at the end of the article.
No that was “Ainsley Maitland-Niles who has recovered from illness”. I have considered all things in the article before posting. 🙂
Iwobi is Incredibly important. We don’t have anyone like him able to take on players one on one and act as a catalyst pulling defenders out of position Some of his lay offs to Kolasinac have been superb not to mention audacious cross field balls. Between Lichsteiner and AMN, we will need one fit. Jenkinson is less than ideal and we need Mustafi available at cback. He provided plenty of good balls out from the back against Soton to Mhkitaryan further up the field from deep. Lichsteiner ‘s liability is pace and durability due to age (much like Koscielny) But… Read more »