Arsene Wenger admits Arsenal may have to get ‘creative’ if Mikel Arteta’s ankle problem proves to be more serious than initially diagnosed.
The Spaniard was injured in a collision with Demba Ba in Tuesday’s 0-0 draw with Besiktas leaving the Gunners seriously short of cover in the defensive midfield position for the next couple of weeks.
Mathieu Flamini, who will likely start Saturday’s match at Everton, is the most obvious replacement while the club scour the transfer market for reinforcements, however, it appears the boss is also open to other solutions within his squad.
Speaking ahead of the trip to Goodison Park, he stated: “We are not against that [reinforcing], no.
“If it’s a long-term injury [for Mikel Arteta] that puts us in a position where we have to be creative.”
It’s not as if we’re short of players who can do a job in the centre of the park. Both Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey can drop deeper, the likes of Tomas Rosicky and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have bite in the tackle and Calum Chambers versatility was highlighted when he signed. Dare we say it, even Abou Diaby* is an option.
Of course, these are really only short-term solutions, you can’t spend a season consistently fielding players out of position. We’ve been crying out for a ‘proper’ presence in the Vieira/Yaya Toure mould for years.
On the opening day of the season Arsenal were both the shortest and lightest team in the Premier League measuring an average 5ft 9in and weighing in at just 11 stone. Compare that to Chelsea who stood at 6ft 1in and 12 stone 4lbs across the board and it’s clear we’re giving away a considerable physical advantage.
Talking of Chelsea players, the boss remains steadfast in his belief that he made the right decision not to bring Cesc Fabregas back to the Emirates.
The former Arsenal captain made his debut for Jose Mourinho’s side on Monday and pulled the strings in a man of the match performance that included one particularly spectacular assist for Andre Schurrle.
“It was [strange seeing him in a Chelsea shirt]. You have to accept that professional players move from club to club and it was difficult for me to see him leave us.
“After he has left us for one club, you accept the idea that he can move to some different clubs. Of course it was a bit strange but he had a good game. I have no regret about [Arsenal not re-signing Fabregas] at all. My regret is that he left us.”
__
*when fit [stop your ROFLing at the back]
Flamini should be given a chance so far wenger tells him it’s ok not to get carded in the first five minutes of entering into a match.
Ou est leCoq?
“qFLAMINI CAN’T BE TAMED” someone should make a banner of that
On/Off Topic: Saw a recent replay of a Juventus game and damn, Paul Pogba is a monster! Him next to Rambo just behind Özil is a thing of dreams … Sorry.
What has happened to Diaby for real?
What does a “creative solution” even mean ??? ….. Possible “CREATIVE SOLUTIONS” could be :
1. Offering a 1000 goats along with Mourinho to the Indian Gods as sacrifice to get Arteta Back pronto
2. Wenger doing a naked rain dance (extension of his beach antics at Brazil) to distract opposition players during the match
3. Hammer Abou Diaby till he is shortened down to Artetas height and do a plastci surgery for conversion of his sking colour to pass him off as Arteta
Well ….. anyone up for better CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
I vote #1. Well, as an animal rights wacko, don’t want to see goats sacrificed, but maybe Mourinho would be enough? 🙂
Indian Gods: We don’t want this wankhammer
He should just play Thomas Vermaelen in the CDM role.
Oh, wait.
I’d rather build a wall with 16m in notes in front of the back four.
It is possible too.
A goal is 7.33m x 2.44m
A £5 note is 135mm wide and 0.133mm thick. A wall to cover the entire goal would need 996,113 notes. Let’s get three layers – that’s about £15m.
I should go out more…
That, my friend, was amazing.
Hang on. Being on Arseblog doesn’t count as going out?
That’s right, he’s both extremely injured and extremely injured for someone else.
Plus we’re £15M better off and ManU were left disappointed … again.
“I have no regret about [Arsenal not re-signing Fabregas] at all. My regret is that he left us.”
A telling line.
Arsene might be a bit of an Arsenal fan. …somewhat a heartbroken one on this particular case.
What do you mean ‘a bit of’ He’s a 100% full arsenal fan!
he gave his life for the football club. he’s an arsenal martyr
Heartbroken
That is how I felt as well he shouldnt have left us!!!!
I agree with that, its a good thing that as far as fans go he is more on the objective side. Cesc decided to leave us amongst a ridiculous campaign to unsettle him and reportedly paid some money out of pocket to get it done.
For all I care John Terry could finger him in the shower.
You are spot on! Arsene nurtured him, made him captain.he fucked off to the Barca bench. Good luck to him with Maureen, cause the love story with him won’t last…The funny part of this is Cesc ‘hate’ Maureen.I can feel a Mata situation there at the first bad performance from him.
Oh … while we are at it , we can throw in a hair transplant for ABOU as well
I’ve got a creative solution from left field – buy someone who specializes in playing that position.
That’s so crazy it might just work
No way wouid Wenger buy just to cover for a few weeks.
The most creatie solution I can think of would be wing backs, lots of talk about it not waorking for United but we could shunt Debuchy infield a bit, and bring in Bellerin or keep Chambers in there with Debuchy as RWB; as long as we have two solid midfielders in front it’d work nicely.
Yes, now is a great time to radically alter our formation and tactical approach. Definitely a good idea to conduct this sort of experiment when the season has started as opposed to, say, pre-season.
I didn’t say it would be a brilliant solution, just a creative one.
I think there’s too much emphasis put on the way it’s played though, much like playing a goalscorer at AM makes a 4-3-3 look more like a 4-4-2 with a striker dropping back, so 3-5-2 can look like 4-3-3 with a DM lying so deep he’s practically a CB and the full-backs getting forwards.
no way. we need to convert somebody into something.
That’s exactly how I feel about fabregas situation.
Carvalho anybody?
coq’s final stand
Will he be firm and erect, or will he go limp?
That one made my day. I might have pissed myself a little though..
It’s not that funny. Control yourself.
√now this is comedy.
Let us just win
Just buy Khadira already! Grrrr lol
What’s a Khadira and where can I found one?
Is it legal?
If it’s that placenta stuff it seemed to help the Little Boy for a year or two.
I wish Javi Martinez was’nt injured. I’d have mooted him, Toby Aldeweireld????, and maybe Falcao-yes, Wenger a french man and a former monaco boss can make that deal happen for less than £60m
All the dodgy 3rd party stuff means we’d be paying a lot more than any reported fee, if we get a big name striker from France it’ll be Cavani, but we won’t so it probably wouldn’t be.
It looks bad for MA8 half his leg is missing in that pic…
I hope diaby gets his chance
Just realized MA8 looks like someone trying to type “mate” in text speak and failing.
I think it will do us good to loan Alex song and Falcao, and may be with d option of buying will be better! But so far let us just keep d faith and pray hard for an injury-free season! Gunners till death do us part!
Alex song played DM in the season where we conceded a record high 49 goals. I don’t want him back.
Also; one does not simply loan the best striker in the world.
There’s options out there, Carvalho, Luiz Gustavo. We don’t need to be ‘creative’ Arsene when we’ve got money to spend and time to spend it. We’ve had one injury in CM and were down to the bare bones? It’s quite embarrassing tbh, we’ve needed a CDM ever since Song left and that was nearly two years ago. But once again Wenger will make do and we’ll all wonder why we get spanked at Anfield/Stamford Bridge/Etihad this year and finish fourth again.
We needed one when Song was here, then we got one in Arteta and then got anoither one in in Flamini. I get the feeling we have s list of guys we want for this window and next Summer in terms of DM, if we can’t get one of them this time we’ll get one next season.
I hope we get one now because I don’t trust Flamini to stay on the pitch when we need him, and Chambers looks brilliant but is only 19.
No, we made do with Arteta after we sold Song the day before the season started and didn’t sign anyone else. We also made do by bringing Flamini back for free when AC Milan didn’t want him. And now both are the wrong side of 30, and Arteta is currently injured and cannot run at the best of times, while Flamini is a card magnet. We’ve ‘made do’ for three years, and its quite unacceptable with the money we have to spend. I hope we do get one as well, I just don’t see it. If Wenger thought we had… Read more »
Well, in Song’s last season with us there was one of those two holding our midfield together; I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t Song.
When you have someone that can do the job and does it very well, it’s not ‘making do’, if we were to continue with an aging Arteta and an increasingly more volatile Flamini without investing now, that would be ‘making do’ until next summer when we sign someone there.
Did Arteta do the job very well last year or even the year before that though? Against better and more physical teams we suffer with Arteta, and Flamini isn’t a long-term solution either, id say he was brought back because Arteta was injured and he was cheap as they come. I don’t have much faith in either of them, especially with us being in all these competitions, does Wenger expect those two, plus Chambers whose already covering for two positions already, to do that job adequately all season? If he does then im afraid itll be the same old story… Read more »
From what I’ve seen of Luiz Gustavo against Germany… no thank you.
He turned us down last year so he could play with his Brazilian mates at Wolfsburg.
He’s nothing special (as seen in Brazil this summer).
…plus there’s that awful Lando Calrissian ‘tache. No thanks!
Talking of the physical advantage found in height and weight reminded me of the lorry produciton in the former Soviet Union. It measured the success of its production plans in the tonnage of lorrys manufactured (rather than numbers), leading to the development of frankly quite oversized vehicles unfit for their intended purpose.
You know a scary amount of information about soviet lorries…
You can be creative on September 1st. You have 11 days to be proactive.
When judging my comment please be selective.
And not too reactive.
The combination of Jack and Ramsey didn’t exactly fill me with much hope to be honest. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t figure out who goes forward and who stays back with Arteta there. Maybe when Özil comes back they will know that Özil is the “number 10” and won’t have that much confusion… Don’t think that Wenger is going to sign someone to be honest… We have enough midfielders to play a whole XI of midfielders (when they are all fit, which is obviously never, The Arsenal curse) but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think we should sign a… Read more »
THink arsenal played a 4-3-3 and not a 4-1-3-2. Ramsey always plays a little behind and makes late runs while wilshere plays closer to giroud for the ‘give-and-go’s. That much has always been pretty clear i think.
I meant 4-2-3-1
My take is that has been the problem with them playing together. Kind of a Lampard-Gerrard problem without the twats. Jack wants to play box to box and burst through traffic in on goal, while Ramsey has quite established himself as a box to box with the attacking run. I’d personally rather see Jack sit back a little more given Ramsey’s effectiveness scoring, but either way one of them has to hold down the middle while the other commits. Don’t know if they’re not communicating on the pitch well enough, or if they just need to agree ahead of the… Read more »
It’s pitbull flamini’s time to shine.
Alex song?
Alex Song was effectively made available for transfer for disciplinary reasons, it’s no secret. Why on earth would Wenger put himself back in that position again?
Hehe. Hehehe. Hehhehaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
he didn’t come back because we are a sentimental club. we worry too much about the emotional needs of the players than the good of the club. if he comes in and does well it means hurting a player who’s not doing that well. our squad depth is good but the quality is poor somewhere along the lines. lose another Ramsey and Ozil and the season goes down the top four drain again. look at our second stricker, it’s youth project all over again. promise but still no goal. As for our first choice, we did everything to improve that… Read more »
Well, you say about how the rest of the squad needs investment but you say that not getting Cesc back was a purely emotional decision, surely if money needs to be spent elsewhere then wasting it on an area we’re already well stocked would be more sentimental than turning him down to plough money into the rest of the team? I would also say ‘relying on Sanogo’s goals’ is rather disingenuous, are we expecting Walcott and Sanchez to not get any and Rambo to suddenly turn into Cleverley? To say nothing of Poldi’s left foot and the Ox’s hastening development… Read more »
Since when is Giroud’s only competition Sanogo? Wenger signed Sanchez exactly to provide that option/cover and he will play up front. The only reason that Sanchez is out wide right now is as cover for Walcott’s pace. When he moved for Suarez it was again to get an option of someone who could play instead of Giroud or in addition to him. Sanogo is 3rd choice, which is fine when you think that we only play with one centre forward.
We’ve got pace right now if Wenger wanted to play Alexis up front. Oxlade-Chamberlain or Campbell, instead he wastes Cazorla out there where he is incredibly ineffective
*when he’s playing badly.
Santi played out wide enough times in his first season with us to show it’s not where he starts that matters but the way he plays.
Your handle betrays you……
It does worry me a little – I could easily talk of the things that concern me but I stand by Wenger. Only he knows.
What if chambers becomes our 3rd choice CB. And we concentrate on buying a DM
still need a 4th choice
crazy that a 19 year is our second choice RB, third choice CB, and third choice DM. just promote someone in the squad or buy someone. can’t believe how thin we are defensively. i know it’s a lot easier said then done, but it’s not as if we don’t have money (and may the champs league)
Could’ve had Gustavo last yr and he chose Wolfsburg so piss on him. We definitely need some muscle in that position though. Flamini is way too card happy as well so cover needs to be provided. I would take Carvahlo. Cheaper n more fierce than Khedira.
I agree. Although I’ve never seen him play, I know that he is a proper DM unlike Khedira who is actually a box-to-box midfielder.
Isn’t this typical of the nonsense spouted by fans though? Never seen the guy play, reliant on others to say how good he is, but still think Arsenal should sign him. My mate Tony is a top quality defensive midfielder, real muscle, can play on 5 pints too – think we should sign him? Most people haven’t a scooby whether Carvalho is a genuine upgrade on what we have already but we’re supposed to care what they say anyway?
Agree with Gus. Also, Arteta wasn’t exactly a DM when we signed him. Pretty much all top class box to box-mid’s are more than capable of playing a little bit deeper, and hold back on a couple of offensive runs.
Ontheup. Comment of the season so far
It’s time to unleash the Coq. He can go in hard and fast, sit in the hole or come from behind. He can spray it around too and can really hold his own.
ah but can he do the fandango in Stoke, on a wet and windy Tuesday night?
Sounds like about the same, I reckon.
It will be the Ox.
He played in this position before and did very well…
A loan option might not be too bad..memories of kallstroom
Not undermining peoples’ judgement but I’ll have to go to YouTube to see that Carvalho guy. …I know M’vila was once a hot property on Arsenal fan sites. Gustavo, Khedira, and even Shneiderlin too. I understand it is wishes but thinking they would be the SOLUTION and posting it repeatedly is not wise. Irritating some.
They don’t particularly excite me. CF and additional CB (both known or unknown by me) would satisfy me.
Are we really “seriously short”, or do we just have 2 players for each position like most clubs do and one of them is injured? I agree with the opinion that we could upgrade on Arteta and/or Flamini (although it wasn’t so long ago that praise for both was being sung from the rooftops…) but it’s basics that you don’t sign someone every time there’s an injury. At present we have more than 2 players for each position and are well stocked numbers-wise. People seem to forget that all clubs have a maximum number of players that they can name… Read more »
I think its more to do with the fact that at 30-plus, both don’t offer much long term. Flamini was signed on a 2 year deal if I’m not wrong. We can sign someone now and allow for him to settle at the club without the pressure of playing every game straight away. However, making Arteta captain is a clear sign that he’s going to be one of the two deep-lying midfielders for 1-2 years at the least (surely, Ramsey has to be the other). I don’t like this at all, but I guess thats how Arsene sees it. I’m… Read more »
I think Flamini was only given a 2-year deal, but I might be wrong. I don’t disagree, I would like to see us upgrade on Arteta and Flamini and it is frustrating that we have so far not upgraded. Like blogs, I suspect that Wenger will try and bring someone new in, but my point is more that there isn’t a shortage of numbers currently. Arteta gets injured and we do have another defensive midfielder to step in. Flamini gets injured and, yes, we need to be creative with the players we already have. There’s nothing new there, every club… Read more »
I should clarify; we have more than 2 players for every position other than CB. We are perfectly well stocked with DMs, it’s just that quite a number of us think we can do better than what we have. They’re different questions.
No, it’s the same question. What is the use if you have 10 DMs (and keep giving contracts to the injured ones)but you only trust to play 2 of them and only 1 is anywhere near capable? Coach is too stubborn and sticks too much to his preferred players and only drops them when they are injured or when the results are out of hand…Go crazy on Arteta but I’m not a fan of Arsene converting players out of position and “make-do” with them when they are merely passable in the converted position. As a DM, Arteta fulfills nothing of… Read more »
Arsenal plays a system with Arteta playing as the deepest lying midfielder. So he is the first choice and will be the template of who we signed for his replacement.
Blogs, a request. Can we not talk about Cesc any more? It hurts!
Am I the only one seriously worried about our striking options right now? I know the media are going to town with anti-Giroud stuff at the moment, but looked at objectively, over his time at Arsenal he isn’t good enough for a team aspiring to challenge for the title. He can pretty much only score from pull-backs inside the 6 yard box, he hardly ever scores from headers even. He can’t beat a man whatsover and can’t run behind the defence. He should be scoring a lot more than about 1 in 2.5 games with this Arsenal team behind him.… Read more »
Looking at it objectively, Giroud’s goals and assists stats from last year show he can do much more than just score from 6 yards. And the Community Shield goal was evidence. No, he’s not a 30-goal a season man but they’re few and far between at the top level. Sanchez could be though – i’m baffled why people think that he won’t play up front once Walcott is back, it’s obvious he will. Giroud will more than likely play in away games when we need an out ball.
The community shield goal was a fluke. I’m not sure he’s ever scored from outside the box before for us. Won’t be doing that again this season.
I think to a lot of us it’s not so obvious Alexis is going to be a regular CF. Wenger has been sticking quite regularly to a target-man up top to relieve pressure and bring others into play. We only experimented with Theo there a few times last season, with mixed results.
That is not at all to say I’m against giving it a go, just that it’s not so obvious to me and it would require more adjustments to the way the whole team plays to remove that physical presence and linking play.
Hold up play isn’t all about size. How often do we see Giroud winning the first battle but then lose the ball immediately with a bad touch? Sanchez is no doubt capable of hold up play with his amazing feet. He’s stronger than you would think too. Won a lot of battles against Silva and Sideshow Bob when Chile played Brazil in the WC
0.05, 2.23 and 2.58 in this video for a few examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPcJT8PX_KI
Absolutely. It’s quite obvious that Wenger sees the potential for Sanchez to be a striker and that’s why he hasn’t bought another on top of him. He certainly didn’t buy him because he felt that we needed more right-sided attackers given he already had the likes of Walcott, Ox, Rosicky and Gnabry. By Xmas Sanchez is likely to have played more up front than on the wing. I get it that people won’t automatically think of Sanchez as a striker because he didn’t play there for Barcelona very often, but people overlook Wenger’s long track record of changing players’ positions.
i bet Giroud can be an outstanding CDM. with tge way he breaks our attacks imagine him breaking the opponents play.
That’s rich coming from someone named Fred.
WTF is a stone, and do people still talk that way up north?? I find lbs confusing enough…
It’s a unit used to quantify the endurance of your kidney.
Wenger is a man of principles. He believes in the current squad that he has and Arteta being the captain aswell is pretty much a First Team player for him. I just can’t see him buying Khedira who would have to be a starter and that would push Arteta out of the team. Carvalho seems more logical but I have a feeling that it depends on where he see’s Chambers’ future position. Also would you pay 30 mil and/or above for an Arteta understudy? I think if the right player becomes available he will sign a young defender or loan… Read more »
I’m scratching my head about the 5’9 statistic… The only players in our ‘starting eleven’ who are 5’9 or below are Santi, Jack and Theo. We have 6’6 Per and almost 6’4 Giroud starting.
Per hasn’t played yet this season (nor has Theo) and Alexis is 5’7
I’m of the opinion that Arteta doesn’t have the physical ability to get around the pitch and cover wide areas when needed but it was very noticeable that Besiktas had more of the ball and we lost control once Arteta went off. He adds a real measure of calm to our game and is clearly a massive influence on the others around him. I’d love to see us sign someone more physically powerful but I still believe Arteta has a huge part to play in this season. I think Khedira is the most likely to happen before the close of… Read more »
Here’s a creative solution ‘Buy a f*cking world class defensive midfielder who isn’t a midget!’
Thats a solution no doubt.. but not a creative one.
And how many games will Flamini play before he gets suspended anyway?
Where kalstrom still miss him will fit in nicely at CM his a beast his got the physicle strenght give him the role
Suffice to say the outcome of Sunday’s game will generate a lot of heated argument in this talk of being creative.
Where has all the positivity gone??
really surprised how much one fucking away draw on a shit pitch can change!!!
Chill guys…Wenger’s got this..This time we are going for the kill not top 4 finish
Arsenal would be stronger with arteta/flamini as DM and cavani/falcao CF than any ‘specialist’ DM and giroud upfront. That means we need a striker more than a DM if we only had enough cash for one….
Falcao yes. Not Cavanni.
http://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2014/no-arsenal-bid-for-edinson-cavani/
No chance anyway
How about.. umm per and kosc start , and chambers playing the holding midfield position?
Arsenal fans. We are not a happy bunch, are we? Always finding something to complain about. No one on this forum has a better idea about this squad and what’s available on the transfer market than Wenger. If he believe the team will be better served by resulting to ‘creative’ solutions to resolve the DM conundrum, then so be it. Let the man do his job and stop crying at every turn.
What does ‘creative’ mean anyways?
it means there will be a lot of comments and debate around here.
Ok we did some good business but at the end of last season we needed a defensive midfielder, a center half, and a proven goalscorer with the exception of chambers who can fill in at the back we still havnt done what needed to be done and it was there for all to see against quite frankly poor opposition on tues night
Is Sanchez (20+ goals last season alone) not a proven goalscorer?
Chirk Tiote anyone? If not for anything else, that belter against us in the 4-4 vs Newcastle a few years ago
Cheik Tiote anyone? If not for anything else, that belter against us to make it 4-4 vs Newcastle a few years ago
Yann MVilla anyone? Luis Gustavo anyone? Victor Wanyama anyone? Morgan Schneiderlin anyone? William Carvalho anyone?
All players that are mediocre at best. The former 3 have careers that have gone nowhere.