After two weeks off – much of which was spent training in Dubai – Arsenal return to action on Saturday hoping for a confidence-boosting win against Crystal Palace that reduces the gap on league leaders Liverpool to two points.
The Gunners are currently on a run of one win in seven games, including three consecutive defeats, and desperately need to find their scoring boots if they’re to mount a serious title challenge.
Having lost Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu to international duty and with the club unlikely to enter the transfer market on a whim, Mikel Arteta needs as many players fit as possible. Heading into the winter break, there were question marks over the fitness of five key players; Thomas Partey, Fabio Vieira, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and Jurrien Timber.
In his pre-game press conference, perhaps with one eye on springing a surprise on tomorrow’s visitors, the boss wasn’t giving anything away.
Pressed on the injury situation, he said: “Yeah, we still have a few [injuries], unfortunately, on that list that we haven’t managed to get back yet but hopefully, they are much closer and some of them are in a better place than we expected.
“Individually I’m not going to tell you exactly how everybody is but we are still missing a few. We are touch and go with a few, that’s what I would say.”
The subject was revisited again when Arteta was asked for an update on Jurrien Timber. The Holland international is back training on the grass having damaged his ACL in August but it sounds like an imminent return isn’t close. That said, he could play before the end of the campaign.
“There is a possibility [he’ll be back before May], but at the moment he’s still very, very far from competing, that’s the realistic picture of it,” said Arteta.
“Are we hopeful that he can have an impact at the end of the season? If everything goes well, it looks like there is a chance that that might happen but I think it’s too early to make that call.”
FIRST
Please reread the posting rules.
Or take that stupidity to Le Groove
I bet they are all back from injury. Arteta simply refusing to give us the true picture of things.
That true-picture hoarding rat bastard..
Viera and Timber are no key players. Timber had a very promising start and hopefully we will see him a lot in the next season. So I think we’re generally fine with the injuries this season. At least compared to others.
Would disagree on Timber. He looked outstanding during the matches he played (inc pre season) and I’m convinced he’s the master piece we are missing at the back
Kolasinac looked great in his early days too, Blog painted him as a monster. It was a promising preseason, therefore I think we must wait with the verdict.
Yaya Sonogo was banging in the goals in pre season too. Can’t really go by a couple of matches that really have no meaning but I have a feeling Timber will be a good signing for us.
The title should say ” We will always have a few injuries.”
Partey’s return would make a huge difference. Rice can cover more ground, and reads the game brilliantly, so he is as good as–probably better than–Partey as a purely defensive 6, especially to stop counters. But Rice is naturally a left-sided player, and in any case does not have Partey’s passing range. Partey makes the whole right-sided attack much quicker and more fluid. White is better when Partey is there; Odegaard plays higher on the pitch, and all of that gives Saka more opportunities in (relative) space.
Can’t wait to have him back. But it also raises a question we don’t want, who will be our next right sided CM? In a perfect world Partey gets fit and stays fit through next season but can we really count on that?