According to various reports out of Italy, Riccardo Calafiori has avoided a serious knee injury after falling awkwardly in Tuesday’s win over Shakhtar Donetsk.
The player appeared to twist his right knee with 20 minutes remaining and was substituted a couple of minutes later having attempted to play on after receiving treatment.
While Mikel Arteta will be relieved not to be dealing with a long-term injury, his summer signing is still facing ‘a few weeks’ on the sidelines at a time when other key players are missing.
Concerns about a bigger problem were rooted in the defender’s injury history. Calafiori suffered a near career-threatening injury to his knee while playing for AS Roma in a Uefa Youth League match six years ago. It was deemed so bad, doctors feared he might struggle to walk, let alone play football.
Thankfully, after a year of rehab, he made a full recovery and the player credits the difficult situation with turning him into the player he is today.
Given Arteta’s tendency to be deliberately vague on injury updates, he’s unlikely to set a timeframe for Calafiori’s return in tomorrow’s press conference. However, it’s fair to assume the player – who already missed a couple of weeks of the campaign with a calf problem – is a doubt for the five games leading up to the next international break
The Gunners host Liverpool on Sunday before a run of four consecutive away games against Preston North End, Newcastle, Inter Milan and Chelsea.
Ffs. Some really tough fixtures ahead. Playing Timber, who himself is just recovering from an ACL, in all those fixtures is not feasible.
Quietly confident that we will have him for Liverpool’s visit to the Emirates this weekend. If he does play, then I would be confident of him doing a decent job in place of Saliba. But long term, these injuries are starting to grate.
I’d be more inclined to play Kiwior in Saliba’s place and start Timber against Salah at LB.
This would mean not having to shift Partey to RB – he’s been looking as our best CM lately.
Absolutely. Could not agree more. We will struggle without Partey in his position in front of back four. When on form which he is at the moment, there’s not many better than him.
Imagine that. Loads wanted him gone in the summer or wanted him benched when Merino came, because he’s washed up and has no legs
I was one such and I regret nothing, he is a player we should be upgrading on, and I still think the plan is/was to move Rice back into that position once Merino is up to speed. I’m glad he’s found some fitness and form, he is playing at a level I wasn’t sure he had anymore. But this is a reprieve, not a long term solution.
If you play either Kiwior or Timber at CB, doesn’t that mean Ben White at RB either way ?”
Isn’t Tomiyasu available now
He’s available for the physios.
Said nobody. Ever.
We will also likely have one of rice or merino to help cover that area from midfield.
Based on what I read above I will start calling him Eduardo Calafiori.
Dude, wtf.
‘It was deemed so bad, doctors feared he might struggle to walk, let alone play football’
But he did come back and unlike Eduardo is thriving, so why on earth would you attach that label to him? Rhetorical, no need to answer.
We are such a damaged fan base
And there was me saying “wtf with all the defenders” just 2 months ago… It’s starting to feel like we are a bit cursed this season. No time to feel sorry for ourselves though. All we can do is put out the best 11 we have available. I seem to remember Kiwior doing a solid job against Liverpool last season. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And hopefully we are getting our bad luck out of the way nice and early. But, were it not for that Rodri injury, I’d probably be losing the faith about now. We stumble… Read more »
And there was me saying “yes, we finally have decent defensive numbers” … but it was still not enough because the pattern was set last season that we shall have at least 3 full-backs injured at any given time.
It’s all about character and belief amongst the squad now. Everyone has to step up.
So, let’s actually do this player-by-player :
Gabriel – Good to go
Saliba – Banned
Zinchenko – Injured
Calafiori – Injured
Timber – Potentially injured
Ben White – Rusty and possibly injured
Kiwior – Good to go
Tomiyasu – Injured
Tierney – Injured
(I may be wrong on some of these?)
But I make that two definitively fit defenders.
So we’ll either be seeing T5 or MLS starting in the back four at the weekend?
Hmmm. Scary stuff.
Gabriel timber white kiwior MLS.
If available that’s a pretty strong 5 to choose 4 from
Yup, it’s good, provided we aren’t risking White or Timber. But then again, I suppose we have to take risks in these situations.
I’d personally go White – Timber – Gabriel – Kiwior
But I suppose White could play RCB and Timber RB. It’s just Timber played predominately RCB at Ajax whereas White has had little recent experience at CB.
Or I suppose Timber could play LB and Kiwior at RCB.
I’m still weirdly confident about the weekend. But maybe I’m being slightly delusional.
I wouldn’t be against TP5 at rb as I think Jorgi at CDM would be best to control the game
Well your confidence comes from the fact that this team is still undefeated 11 vs 11, and their defeat at Bournemouth was the first in 6 months, and that Liverpool have had an easy schedule and are just cresting the new manager bounce and aren’t that far ahead. So yeah, plenty to feel confident about. With the injuries and suspension to our key players it becomes a more 50/50 game. At full strength it would have been 60/40.
Zinchenko was on the bench for both games last week so I think he’s fine. I think White is fine too, part of the halftime substitution was to keep him fresh for this one.
Dangerous stuff this stepping up. I’d rather they stay seated.
Mannn we are really having it hard this season w injuries and its only like 12/13 games into the season.
You get the impression that our luck is such, that even if we’d bought an entire boehlysworth of defenders, that all but three of them would be injured by now.
If we had an actual boehlysworth we’d be in exactly the same position, but we’d also have fifteen others out on loan that we’d be paying the wages of.
Grade 2 MCL I would think. 4-6 weeks
If this is right I think he’ll be out until after the interlull, hopefully not too much longer. If that’s the case I’ll be very relieved, as it looked really bad. I feel sorry for him, it was really unlucky, and he’s been doing so well for us.
It would be brilliant if Odegaard and Calafiore got fit for the next interlull.
That sucks
This is part of why I think Tomiyasu’s time might be up in summer. He reminds me a lot of Rosicky – a player I loved and who there are basically no arguments is good enough to play in the team, but we just can’t base our “depth” on somebody when there’s no guarantee they’ll be fit.
Yeah and it’s such a shame. Periods like this a fit Tomiyasu if he had a good stretch could easily supplant Timber on the right or earn backup to Calafiori on the left. By the time he’s fit we’ll be full strength again and he will still be on the outside. 100% guaranteed wherever he goes he’ll have a flawless injury record for 10 years.
Btw that challenge was not “shoulder-to-shoulder”.
Cala is going in a straight line with the ball and the guy just comes and barges into him from the side.
If someone does that to you there is a definite chance of injuring your knee or ankle. Should be a yellow card.
There are still so many permutations even with a pool of just Zinchenko, Gabriel, Kiwior, and White as specialist defenders, because the squad is full of multifaceted players. You could just have those four guys as a back 4 with Zinny inverting, circa 2022/23. You could put Kiwior at LB for more physicality but giving up possession/territory. Ben White can play RCB with TP dropping into RB. You could easily ask Declan Rice to play RCB and keep White at RB. You could go back 3 of Kiwior/Gabriel/White. There are even crazier things to try. If Timber is actually fit… Read more »
Agree 100%
I imagine just now, not knowing the fitness that Saka is most likely to start and TP5 ar rb with White Gabi and Kiwior staying tight and Jorgi balling at CDM.
We will have too much physical strength in Rice and Merino so hopefully the attack hit form and be is saka or Jesus at RW , we should exploit them down that side ans Gabi marti is hitting form so I’m confident but would be so much more so if Timber was fit
Scheduling this year is really shit.