Laurent Koscielny should be fit enough to take part in Arsenal’s Champions League qualifier with Besiktas after taking part in the club’s final training session before their flight to Turkey
The French international had been a doubt for the season opener with Crystal Palace on Saturday but just about recovered from an Achilles knock to play a full 90 minutes on Saturday.
While doubts continue to linger over the centre back’s fitness – he’s also thought to be suffering from tendonitis – the dearth of options in his position means Arsene Wenger has little choice but to include the 28-year-old in his squad with a view to again partnering him with new boy Calum Chambers.
Kieran Gibbs did not take any part in today’s session suggesting he will miss the trip to Istanbul and could be a doubt for next weekend’s trip to Goodison Park. The left-back, who will be replaced by Nacho Monreal, appeared to tweak a hamstring in the second half against Palace as he mounted a raid down the wing.
Mathieu Flamini who was left out of Saturday’s squad in favour of Francis Coquelin trained as did young duo Ignasi Miquel and Hector Bellerin.
Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski and Mesut Ozil trained separately from the rest of the group as they continue their ‘pre-season’ preparations after their World Cup exploits.
Apart from being terrific in the general sense that he is a bloody fantastic player, Laurent would be the perfect matchup for Ba one would think. That he trained is therefore great news.
Aside from that, though – does anyone have experience with an achilles injury? Can achilles soreness recover without surgery? I was under the impression that you basically need an operation to clean up the tendon once it starts to get sore.
Kos is a fucking medical marvel. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s limped off the field with injuries the sight of which could reduce hairy grown men to a sobbing vaseline-covered mess. Remember last year when he took some kind of ridiculous cut to his knee and it needed 10,000 stitches or whatever and was meant to be out for like a month but was back playing the next week? Probably did some keepy uppies in the physio room, spraying blood everywhere like it’s a deleted scene from Hostel. (I might be a bit shady on the… Read more »
There is an older gentleman in my office who has an Achilles problem and walks with a permanent limp, sometimes it’s a little better, sometimes it’s a little worse…I hope Kos’ issue isn’t the same. One can work in an office with a bit of a limp…
Really? Perfect match-up? We’re talking about DEMBA BA. Any half-decent CB will do.
It depends on the type of injury. When I was 14 I suffered a tear in the achilles close to the heel, which did not require any surgery and basically repaired itself in 5 months
I have a friend who tore his achilles higher up closer to the calf, and had surgery,9 months on crutches and 2 years later still can’t play sports for longer than 20 minutes at a time without it troubling him
really hopeit’s neither of those cases with kozzer though
No BFG in the photos from the plane. So glad that Kos seems to be ok for the game. COYG!
Nastasic might be available. Any opinions on potentially getting him to Arsenal?
Good option I reckon. Young enough to be happy to be third choice and can learn from a solid partnership. Only thing that concerns me is that if he’s not good enough for city, I’m not sure he’ll be good enough for us. I don’t know if there were any other issues with him at city, like not being home grown etc…
yeah like ozil and alexis who were not good enough for real and barca
Doesn’t exactly work like that, does it? If you’re good and a club lacks a player with the skills you possess, you will be signed.
Or like TV5 wasn’t good enough to get a game here but Barca paid 15 million.
He has a great reputation, good potential, and he did pretty well at city two seasons ago, even though he was just 19 then. He didn’t get much of an opportunity to establish himself at City last year, and probably won’t again this year. This makes him seem like an excellent target. Problem is: City have the reduced Champions League squad this year, but Nastasic can play without being in it (because he’s 21 and has been at City for 2 years), so they probably want to keep him around because of that.
From what this article is suggesting, it sounds like tendonitis of the Achilles, so I imagine it would be like tennis elbow. I.e. its inflammed but just needs some rest. But hell, I’m no physio. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be another case of freaky anatomy ala Tommy V and his mystery injury.
I’m wondering if it’s not the result of the keeper scissoring Koscielny in the FA Cup Final, and then him just going onto the World Cup skipping on the leg and then coming on back to skip on it for us some more.
City change their back line every year. Lescott? Savic? Now they have mangala. They are like a spoilt child and just want the shiny new cb all the time.
I hope our fitness coach got it right on Laurent, wouldn’t wanna see him getting worse after the game
In Shad We Trust
In Malaysia “cb” is slang for cunt/pussy. That City want a “shiny new cb all the time made me lol. They can afford it anyway…
So, Terry is CB?
YES! CB is actually chee bye which is in hokkien, a dialect of the chinese language. So, John Terry is a CB.
well played.
Indeed. Although there’s nothing shiny or new about it.
Any idea where the game is being broadcast in uk?
Who cares what malaysians think….
Who cares what you think..
Take the xenophobia somewhere else.
Xena Warrior Princess accepted, though
what a weird thing to say.
Don’t be a cb
Cheerio.
I think it speaks volumes that in the two or so years I’ve been following this blog (in which time there’ve probably been around 1500 articles with comments), I’ve only ever seen four or five people banned out of the thousands who post here, and in each case the banning was absolutely correct and done within a couple hours of the offensive post. Mr. Blogs, you are a man of taste and good morals. Thank you. PS to GreenGooner, even though you won’t be able to read it: You are an intolerant and racist prat with no taste, whose morals… Read more »
Gibbs hamstring? SHAD FORSYTHE OUT!
Kos is made from strong stuff, I have seen matches where I thought he won’t make the second half but he has.
We should take a sample of Kos, Henry and Adams, take it to the lab and make our own “Arsenal DNA”. We would never get injured, never let in goals and win every game at least six nil. I know we would be breaking a million laws but if Barcelona can do it.…
Actually, there are a few countries in the Caribbean where there are no laws at all against manipulating human DNA. There are a few firms doing business already, albeit quietly. I think you’ve hit upon something here, let’s see if we can open a clinic in the Caymans or something.
That’s a bit of a relief the news that Koscienly trained. It’s not all doom and gloom after all. Hopefully, it serves as a warning to not gamble the season away but do the needful and bring in another experienced CB.
Did you see the video of him training on the club website though? Looks like he’s in a bit of discomfort every time he steps on it.
@GreenGooner nice. Unnecessary childish racism against our own fans. You can’t just write off people’s opinions because they’re not from London. Arsenal are a global club.
Plus Malaysia is full of people who love Arsenal. I was there for 6 weeks from June to July and the ratio of Arsenal shirts to ALL other English clubs I saw was about 3 to 1. Start caring.
Shad Foarshythe, welcome to the Arshenal.
John Terry is apparently a GIANT “CB”
Hopefully he’s not being rushed
Kos is one tough MF. He is probably hurting real bad but realizes just how much the team needs him. I have tons of respect for him.
Yeah but it could cost him & us in the long term. Unless he’s thinking just get qualified then sit out a couple matches.
How much u people like to admire other team’s 19year olds and berate ours baffels me….we have Miquel in the team and he is 20.he is a decent left back cover and decent cb,not refering to the malaysian slang.
Miquel is 21, nearly 22, actually, which means he can only be in the squad as one of the 25 senior players. Considering how little he’s played for us so far, it doesn’t look like Wenger rates him enough to give him that squad place. The fact that Chambers came straight into the team despite being less of a specialist at centre back and a couple of years younger says it all for Miquel’s career at Arsenal, I think.
Wenger’s latest comments also strongly reflect that. He did mention Miquel but it was almost an afterthought. I’m sure that he could do a job in Turkey but when you consider how important this qualifier is, I don’t think that the boss has any desire to take any kind of risk with the strength of his squad, even if it means that Koscielny will not be 100% or could possibly aggravate his injury.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can get through it without relying on our defensive players too much. The best defense is a strong offense, right?
For the first time in ages I feel nervous about qualification, what with these injuries et al. Anybody know for real if Besiktas are any good?
Beshitkas.
Miquel can do a job most definitely. He wasn’t a disgrace when ever he played
Has he still not got a song? This came to me in what I can only assume was a flash of divine inspiration, Eric Prydz – call on me: http://youtu.be/L_fCqg92qks if you haven’t guessed you just basically sing KOSCIELNYYYYYYY, KOSCIELNYYYYYYY til you’re hoarse. Plus the video isn’t bad either.
@Dean – well played sir ! That simply has to be his song !
I actually love the song about how he wants his own song. It’s the most personally identifiable song that we have for our players; a bit of banter with a healthy side of respect. I can’t imagine him not grinning when he hears it from the stands.
I expect 1st leg will be tight game for us. I think a draw will be an okay result considering this is away game and our lackluster performance against CP.
No team should be taken for granted I know but I feel we will just be too much for Besiktas. I was this nervous before fenerbace last season but it became a no contest.
Buy both Richards and nastasic.
When per is back methinks we should give kos a rest for about a week or two.. The man is a beast and has been playing through injuries for us.. We can’t risk losing him for a long time like we did Rambo last season
City won’t sell Micah Richards, as he is one of the token Brits in the squad.
Isn’t he also primarily a right back?
I keep wondering if Gibbs will ever play 30+ games a season withouth getting injured. He’s an excellent player but he needs to be on the pitch. Its very sad cos it deprives us of our best LB.
I’ve noticed that whenever the Arsenal transfer rumours die out, we sign someone. I’ve not seen any speculation recently about new signings, so perhaps AW will surprise us by end of week?
Blogs, heard the arsecast. A couple of papers reported that Flamini had been absent last game due to illness.