Arsene Wenger says he remains cautious about the prospect of having both Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck at his disposal given both players’ recent injury problems.
Ramsey picked up a hamstring problem on the first day of the season against Liverpool, a problem that coupled with a recent toe injury, has reduced him to just six starts in all competitions so far.
Ahead of the visit of West Bromwich Albion, the boss confirmed that the Welshman is now back in full training along with Welbeck, who hasn’t played since suffering knee ligament damage in a 2-2 draw with Manchester City in May.
“You know the strengths of Aaron, he’s efficient offensively and he has a high level of activity and is a very complete box-to-box player,” replied Wenger when asked what the midfielder brings to the team.
“Overall he gives us options in the team as well. He has not played many games. He has played maybe two games since the start of the season. Let’s not be too premature, he’s had some setbacks so let’s hope this time he will be all right.”
He added: “I’m cautious with Ramsey, but even more so with Welbeck. Welbeck will need some time because today is his first team training.
“Of course, it’s fantastic for him; it’s like starting a new career because he has been out for such a long time.
“I am cautious because with the little setbacks when you have been out for a long time, you have to be patient.”
Welcome back lads, lets hope you can both show some form and give us a real Christmas treat!!
Handy reinforcements for our February revival and our traditional surge for 3rd whilst perhaps, more optimistically, giving us a chance in the FA Cup.
I know i am going to get a lot of negs. for this but after the city game i really really couldnt give a toss about it all. never in the 20 years of me supporting the club have i felt so dejected or broken.
Probably because the way we played was an amalgamation of everything wrong with the club. It was hopeless!
however i am hopeful that it will all turn around as we usually get back to winning ways every new years
The city game.was obviously disappointing but it can’t have been worse than when we conceded 4 in 20 mins against Liverpool. You know the season we were top for most weeks but still messed it up. It can’t have been worse than when we lost to bloody Monaco in the champions league with berbatov laziness personified leading the line.
True, but for me it gets worse as time goes on due to the repetitive nature of it all, and the fact that we now have a huge squad of very good players. If Arsene cannot make it work now, then will he ever be able to compete properly again?
Not sure.
Sadly I agree. As much as I hope I am wrong I can’t see us winning the league or champions league any time soon. Maybe my expectations are just too high.
Too high is about right. Best we can expect is Arsenal compete on the basis of our strengths. Rest is a bit of luck. Since the last time we won the league, we have played a few times to our strengths and come as close as we could. Mostly we always get ahead of ourselves. ‘Walcott has changed’… ‘we can finally defend a 1-0!’ …’Another prospect unearthed’ … ‘Big money / experienced signing proves we mean business’… the hype is counterproductive. I for one am supremely annoyed by many of our players who oscillate between an absolute lack of confidence… Read more »
We have a huge squad of quality players but to be fair it is still a work in progress, and we have some injuries. Xhaka is still new, santi is missing, per is out, mustafi is out, ramsey, welbeck. Jack is on loan. Alexis up top is still new. Lucas has hardly played yet. Also you have the likes of Iwobi, Holding, Chambers who are still very young.
You would expect it to get better.
Also two bad results tend to make everybody forget how strong we were looking before.
Being an arsenal fan is like Groundhog Day. Same mistakes same excuses, but somehow I keep deluding myself that this is our year this is the year we win the league and make a deep champions league run. Fool me once shame on you wenger fool me twice, and three times well still shame on you wenger.
Can’t argue with that. I think we are missing the influence of Mustafi. He is a winner and a fighter
I read yesterday’s Stillman tactics column which dealt with arsenal’s tendency to suffer when strongly pressed and harassed by opposition teams and I ask, why can’t arsenal adopt this tactics in which they will the team pressing the opposition. I watched Bayern Munich vs Leipzig mid week and noticed that Bayern were able to demolish their opponents because of their high pressing which didn’t allow Leipzig to get unto the ball. I shudder to contemplate what will happen to arsenal when they face Bayern in Munich in February in the champions league. Can this arsenal team withstand Bayern’s pressing game… Read more »
As Tim mentioned in that column, I think one of the main things we have to think about is something as simple as the team selection. We all know what Coquelin gives us when we’re the team doing the pressing, but when we’re the ones being pressed he finds it very difficult to play around high pressure. If we’re sticking with the two man midfield, then Wenger has to bite the bullet and go with two deep lying playmakers against high pressing teams. Even if it means sacrificing our strongest midfield tackler, making sure we’re not bullied out of possession… Read more »
Agree with you Sean, it has been evident in every big match this season. Just wonder when Wenger will react to it. We have a really good player in Elneny and think he deserves to start with Xhaka again (they were solid against Bournemouth). Think Elneny has suffered a bit about the fact that he has played the other matches with Coq as they seem to bring the worst out of each other , almost to the level of the nightmarish Flamteta partnership.
Gotta disagree here. Did you count the number of times Bellerin and Monreal made a meal of it against Man City? Coq had a bad game but I don’t see anyone more effecting at shutting people down in this team. Why is a good long kick to Giroud not an option? For Walcott to run onto a flick? For Ozil to sweep up a knockdown mid stride? What is this obsession with dribbling deep inside your half? Especially when you have been repeatedly hounded. It is plain daft. Wonder why these bunch of players have no plan b or c… Read more »
Hey people……..here is some Christmas cheer!! We beat WBA to a little Piece of Pulis Pulp, and then proceed on a wonderful journey of victories, with beautiful rotation on the way. Small teams come and go, as do bigger ones, banished by a new, ruthless, yet majestic Arsenal. Europe becomes a festival of joy, as we dismiss Munich and that nasty bald chap from a nation know as the Low Lands, and proceed to that Holy Grail, winning the CL in great style. Mesut starts to care and Theo becomes consistent and Rambo starts scoring goals , some of which… Read more »
Someones been at the Christmas wine a bit early!
Welcome back guys. Hope they’ll get eased back slowly into the team.
Welcome back dat guy, hope he is back to face United to score a 93rd minute winning goal that sends them back into the europa league (no idea when the match is played). If we need offensive threat during the second Hal for the season we could start a super fluid front three of Welbz, Alexis and Lucas.
Also, eager to see Ramsey get another chance to play CM with Xhaka, thought they looked solid against Basel.
LANS!!
LTNS!!!
LANC?
Perhaps Wenger listens to his experts more than we give credit for. Seems that we are bringing players back more progressively after long term injuries. Not rocket science but the planning and individual player schedules are possibly more personalised.
I agree with you, but there’s a part of me that also thinks that in previous years we had a much smaller squad, relatively speaking (to our position in the table), so the manager had to almost rush players back (i.e the game we brought Frabregas on at half time and subbed him off with an hamstring injury not too long later). Nowadays the squad Wenger has to work with is much deeper and the quality of our first team players has improved as well, so maybe the players who do get injured are given an ‘extended’ break away to… Read more »
High hopes Danny will be the inspiration for the big push.
Yeah we need to go on a crazy run during the second half of the season. Need a big and strong squad to do that.
It’s not just strength in depth but also knowing when to employ the players. This is something Wenger has been poor at. We cannot fault his amazing acumen in the market. We can’t say he is deficient in building a team or developing players. He isn’t a mug either with tactics. But he is generally over cautious in introducing players to bring influence on a game. Sometimes, if the team is under pressure, he needs to put players who can provide an outlet for the defense and do it early before it all falls apart. BY the time he introduces… Read more »
They cancelled the party because it’s all gonna happen on the pitch yo!
Merry Christmas fellow Gunners! Remember to take the smooth with the rough and drown those frowns!
Here’s to the Ramsey post-scoring strut and the Welbz ‘I score when I want’ jig!