News broke earlier that Hector Bellerin would be missing from tomorrow night’s Champions League clash against Bayern Munich.
The young Spaniard picked up a knock, described by Arsene Wenger as ‘short term’, meaning he won’t be risked ahead of the North London derby on Sunday. It also means a chance for Mathieu Debuchy who has had to spend most of this season on the bench.
In the games he has played he has struggled for form, something he explained earlier this year by admitting he was the kind of player who needed a run of games to be at his best.
With Bayern dangerous down their left through Douglas Costa, the Frenchman will have his work cut out for him, but Wenger is confident that his experience will stand him, and the team, in good stead.
“Debuchy will play and I’m confident,” said the Arsenal manager. “I trust Debuchy, he is a 100 per cent educated player in the box and in training.
“Fortunately he played a full game against Sheffield Wednesday and physically he should be well.”
Is it worth pointing out that similar backing for Joel Campbell ahead of the Swansea game did the Costa Rican no harm, and it’s pretty obvious that Debuchy is capable of much better. Let’s hope tomorrow night he can show it.
Why wouldn’t he back him? It’s backs-to-the-wall time and anything to help tide us over is welcome. He’d back Eboue if it came to that.
Why you got to bash Eboue to make point. The guy wasn’t as bad as people make him out to be. He had his moments the same as Sagna, Debuchy, Bellerin, Lauren, etc. He was a great character and an entertainer on and off the pitch.
For crying out loud, just because somebody has played for Arsenal doesn’t mean they should be free from criticism. Eboue was fucking dreadful in the grand scheme of things and anything he did off-field is totally neither here nor there when it comes to judging him as a footballer. Debuchy is a far better player than Eboue ever was or will be. Why the need on here to say such bland, predictable things? Wow, you get some “thumbs ups” from some strangers. It loses the whole point of debate when you say things which are obviously designed to tug on… Read more »
I read your comment with some mild amusement. it is obvious from the sheer number of thumb ups for DAMOBOT (97 at the time of writing, against 5 for you), that the majority in this forum do not share your blinkered view about Eboue as an arsenal player. For the record, I am one of the thumb ups and i am neither a “stranger” here nor do i consider myself “bereft of thumbs-up in real life??” (lol)….(whatever that means!) So, the only person that appear to be talking out of his ‘you know what’ is you and i suggest you… Read more »
You must be confused. Eboue was great in his first few seasons especially the 05-06 season.
May favourite Eboue moment, even though it wasn’t in a red shirt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5mj0Huxajk.
This guy is a legend.
Campbell AND Debuchy?…..uh oh
Of course someone had to say that. 100% predictable.
But look, no one has anything bad to say about Campbell’s defensive work. He’s put in a shift whenever he’s played, did very well on Saturday, and I think, if Debuchy stays in position and lets Campbell back him up when required, they could even have a good partnership.
As Arseblog says, let’s hope so.
Not so long ago, we were more than happy with the fact that we had Debuchy, Per , Kos and Monreal in our defence. Bellerin wasn’t even starting then. When Debuchy got injured, Chambers performed admirably in right back position. And I believe he was our Player of the Month or something. Agree Bellerin was performing brilliantly but that doesn’t necessarily mean either Debuchy or Chambers are bad players. Have belief and support the guys..! Our players are good enough..!
Actually it’ll be solid defensively if Debuchy shows up.
huh, Campbell has been much better than the Ox or Walcott at protecting the right hand side. I wonder if people are watching the same game as me sometimes…
Fortunately he played a full game against Sheffield Wednesday.
Unfortunately he got played off the park for that full game.
I need my Hector back :((
Unfortunately the spring is now almost fully wound.
Lets hope it doesnt go “twang” tomorrow or in the near future.
Arsenal fans will know what im talking about.
Anyone else suspect that Wenger may be giving young Hector a breather? He’s played a lot of football and the game on Sunday is arguably bigger.
Boy, I hope so.
I think the injury was when he crashed into the net. Probably a bad bruise and not a muscle pull.
That’s my suspicion
Sort of … I think Hector probably does have a little tweak, and Arsene is keeping him out for precautionary reasons. If it was a game we absolutely had to win to have any mathematical chance of making the next round, Hector might play – but we can lose this game and still qualify by winning our next two matches and beating Olympiakos by at least two goals (as long as Bayern also beat Olympiakos), so resting Hector for Sunday is a viable option.
I’m guessing this injury might have been caused by him crashing into the goal post at Swansea
I also suspect that’s a part of it, but if a ‘small groin’ is all he got out of that run-in with the goalpost I think we should consider ourselves lucky.
Oh, and Arsene, let’s find a terminology that doesn’t quite so easily translate into questioning our heroes’ self confidence, right?
Yep!…..i agree,… suspiciously similar to the recent Petr cech “injury” i would believe.
should therefore be “fit” for the Sunday match i would suspect.
Mind you, hector does need to be rested though, to avoid a ‘burn out’, especially, considering he has featured consistently in a number of high intensity games for us recently and not forgetting that he is only just 20
The online reaction to this has been hysterical. The Debuchy abuse is completely over the top and saddest of all, there are idiots actually tweeting him directly with this stuff. How is it helpful, to give an example of what I’ve seen, for an Arsenal fan to tweet Mathieu Debuchy telling him to stay at the hotel tomorrow if he cares about the club? How does that support the Arsenal cause? He is an excellent full-back who hasn’t played a lot of football recently due to injury and the consequent emergence of Hector Bellerin, and has struggled to get his… Read more »
Unfortunately there will always a minority of supporters of any club who are twats. Piers Morgan for example.
Don’t even get me started on him, if it were up to me he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the ground. The same bloke who, as editor of the Daily Mirror, framed 35 innocent Arsenal fans for the violence in Copenhagen so he could sell papers for his own profit, now wants to dictate to the rest of us how we should feel about our club and our manager. He makes me sick to my stomach.
Unfortunately they are also the most vocal and give all of us a bad rep
There’s too much collective stupidity online stemming from that vocal minority. Their actions, including @ing Debuchy directly, are heinous and ugly and should be condemned by all proper fans. Then there’s the fans of other clubs who (stupidly) use the actions of these idiots to smear the entire fan base. It’s a perfect troll circle. One minor tweak in the rise of social media would have stemmed a lot of this idiocy – age transparency. If we had all gotten use to being open about our REAL ages online, much of the trolling and negativity would be seen for what… Read more »
Hear hear.
Didn’t he come out in the media talking about leaving? can anyone confirm it as a misquote? i understand its european cup year and he worked hard to dislodge Sagna before coming to us. Anyway direct abuse doesn’t help.
The Twatter shite just makes me sick. Anybody loser enough to do that to any of our players is either a non-gunner troll or should be put on the same boat.
If their lives are that miserable I hope it is for reasons truly out of their control otherwise they’re simply useless wasters. Saying someone had a bad match is one thing, but personally degrading anybody in person or any other forum like that is simply pathetic.
That’s one of the bad sides of social media.
The ones who tweet such awful stuff are either twits or twats. Maybe even not fans of Arsenal. Who knows?
They are, they’re just cunts
There are many idiots, wankers and cunts among us.
Couldn’t agree more! Come on Debuchy!
“Unfortunately as you xan see from his performance against sheffi3ld wednesday, he is not up to scratch but we cannot rexall jenkinson at this time so he is our best option, hopefully he can remind me why I bought him.”
die
Not much else he can say really… the truth would be I’m extremely concerned that our bkup RB had been shit for a while despite being a seasoned international and I’m terrified that Costa will tear him a new one…
Re the other injuries, from Arsene Wenger’s Bayern presser:
‘…and after the break… Chamberlain could be available maybe for Sunday… And after the break Ramsey will be back as well.’
Did anyone else interpret this as meaning this Sunday for Ox? After all, the West Brom game is on a Saturday after the break.
Did hector not suffer a bit with Costa. Maybe having the more experienced and arguably more defensively minded Debuchy will work. For all our talk, frankly I’ll be happy with a 0-0 draw. All good, looking forward to the game – fingers crossed its a positive result and if not ehhh it will be fine.
I think Mr.Wenger is just playing a minded game…but I don’t see Debuchy in the starting 11 tomorrow… I think he’ll play Gabriel as full back as our game would be more of defence than attacks..remember when he bought Gabriel, he said he can play as a full back as well.. Maybe it was the reason he didn’t said Gabriel can play there as well in order not to exposed the game plan!
It’s pretty simple really. Debuchy is a good player, much better than of late, and if a game like this can’t motivate him to put aside all of his issues with not playing, then that’s on him and he’ll be left with no recourse for complaint. Show up, put in an honest shift, make whoever is in charge of France take note.
Alaba and Costa versus Debuchy and Campbell, that could be filthy.
This isn’t the best of news
But Debuchy has a chance to get back in and impress.
He is a very good player who isn’t up to speed. The worry is that he still needs a bit more time to recover form but he is no up against Bayern.
Then again, you never know. May be just the sort of game that will spark him back into form.
Lets hope.
On the plus side, Campbell is very diligent assisting in defense. No doubt Bayern will target our right.
https://youtu.be/Yhv-AClYEzI
Big worry as Debuchy has looked very rusty (to be expected with his limited action) when he has played. If I were Wenger I’d seriously think about using Gabriel in this match to counter the loss of pace with Bellerin being out.
Remember his debut season show before he started to get injured? We basically forget about Sagna.
With a few appearances under his belt now, Debuchy should be ready for the challenge tonight.
He seems to be a bit like Gibbs, where he needs a run of games to get back into his flow. That is quite normal in any sport.
Admittedly, he has been terrible lately, but we have to remember he is a solid RB who made the loss of Sagna a non-issue.
COYG!
rather play Gabby on the right side
It’s strange that Hector is being given time off right before the release of his beloved Call of Duty game comes out…
But in all seriousness, Debuchy needs to stay in position and not get pulled into the center so often.
Cech
Debuchy
Monreal
Mertesacker
Koscielny
Coquelin
Cazorla
Campbell
Gibbs
Sanchez
False 9!!