Alexis OUT! How will Arsenal cope against Tottenham?

The latest news from Arsenal on the injury situation is not entirely unexpected but it is still a heavy blow to take, especially with Saturday’s trip to White Hart Lane for the north London derby having extra significance with our relative positions in the Premier League table.

An Arsenal.com report has revealed that Arsene Wenger will not be able to call on his star man Alexis Sanchez against the spuds. The news is not too bad as the Frenchman explained that our Chile international is back in light training and may be available for the home game with Leicester on Tuesday, but Saturday is too soon. However, we do have the England international forward Danny Welbeck back and the news on Wilshere, Chamberlain and Gnabry is good.

Wenger said, “Welbeck is back in the group. Apart from that we have the same squad available as last week.

“The latest is that Alexis is not ready. He is not far away, the Leicester game is a possibility. He is of course very difficult to keep quiet! He is training but it’s light training.

“Jack is back in full training next week, hopefully from Sunday.

“Alex is still out, but he is starting to practice again, not full training.

“Serge will play on Monday night at Newcastle, with Bielik. Bielik is coming along very well.”

So how will this affect us for the derby? To be honest I am not too worried and would be happy for Wenger to start the same 11 that thrashed Aston Villa. He also has the option of bringing in the pace of Welbeck on one side of the front three.

It won’t change our approach to the game, which will be to stay compact and frustrate the home team and hit them on the break and we have more than enough pace and ability up front to do that. What might happen is that the spuds change their approach and are more adventurous after we lost our best player, especially as they need the win more than we do. That could suit us more than them.

The Gunners will of course miss the ability and commitment of Alexis but in a local derby, every player should be up for it. How do you think Arsenal will do without the star man?

Tags Sanchez Walcott welbeck

44 Comments

    1. Yeah agreed, although this saves Wenger alot of puzzling for naming his starting XI. There’s little argument not to start the same team as in the Villa game now, despite maybe a cheeky Rosicky start as he is their angstgegner!

    1. Liverpool fans have an interesting point about pressing. A lot of them criticise their constant pressing game saying it leaves their players out of position when they do turn over the ball.

    2. no, don’t call him d.rose – that one plays for the Chicago Bulls and he’s not on that level

      1. What is it with yanks thinking it’s acceptable to comment on other sports on a football (not soccer) site?

  1. I was really looking forward to Alexis scoring a few against the spuds, but I am not surprised considering our injury luck always being horrible.
    But I am still convinced Arsenal will take all three points with a 2-0 score. Coyg! 😀

  2. With Alexis in the side opponents have a simple tactic to nullify arsenal. By rushing him with several players. A lot of times this hasn’t worked but it can effect the flow of our football.

    Without him we have more balance, flow and we are harder to suss out.

    Still prefer to have him though. He presses when it isn’t demanded. He is direct. Has world class finishing. Has a great free kick. And opponent can’t keep their shape, so loads of space for the team to exploit.

    Truth of it is we look good with him and without him.

    1. Yes, i think ill/well miss the pressing just as much as his goals… it gets our other players on their toes.

    1. we tied that one though… at home

      One thing we can’t do is stretch the field, which we were doing towards the latter minutes of the Villa match. As long as we stay balanced on both the attacking and defending parts of the game, should be okay. Gonna miss Alexis though

  3. One of our most powerful cannons is damaged? Meh, we still got plenty more firepower. COYG!!!!! Let’s halal that Spud chicken or goose or whatever the f*ck it is!!!!!!!

  4. To be honest, Sanchez can be a bit of a black hole at times. I feel like he tries to do too much himself instead of finding the open man and trusting them to make a good play. There’s no doubt that he is top top class, however with Walcott and Ozil back, it isn’t as big of a blow as it would have been a month ago.

  5. Sanchez or no Sanchez let us beat them. Anything less than a win will kill the momentum. A loss would be disastrous but I think we should do good.

  6. Sanchez or no Sanchez, we shud win dis match given d depth of quality available to us at d moment!! No excuses !!

  7. Am not fazed. With or without Sanchez we will hammer them. Since three or so weeks back, we are no longer a one man team (Alaxis fc). We have better versions of their players. Giroud > Kane etc. Ospina= Lloris. We will hit them 2 to nothing or as we would say in Nigeria- “2 kondo”. Am not bragging but the believe the players have restored. After the last match, I think we cannot take Benteke for Giroud as we had in mind three years back. Looking forward to NLD.

  8. No problem – Squad as follows.

    Ospina

    Bellerin Per Kos Monreal

    Ramsey Coq

    Walcott Cazorla Ozil

    Giroud

    Bench
    Szez
    Gibbs
    Gabriel
    Flamini
    Rosicky
    Welbeck
    Akpom

  9. If Coquelin does his job as well as he has in the last 8 PL appearances we will be fine. Normally very sceptical of stats but for those of you who want a giggle and haven’t done it yet go to Squawka’a Comaprison Matrix, click on the 90 mins metric, put in FC along with Matic, Schneiderlin, Wanyama and Sissoko (or actually anyone you want) and click on defensive score, aerial duels won, % aerial duels won, total duels, interceptions, blocks, clearances and tackles won. It is spectacular – never seen that in any comparison for any player in any league in any position. Must be close to impossible to keep it up.

  10. The headline I’d like to see on Sunday is

    10 goals in 2 games without Sanchez: Does the Chilean still have a future at Arsenal?

        1. @davidnz haha we all know that your starting XI is more like a starting VII with all the players you wanna dispose

  11. Personally i prefer rosicky over ramsay for his defending, energy, passing and goal scoring ability. Ramsay is also very injury prone and if overplayed he has thigh problems which keep him out for very long periods at a time. Either way i know we will win

  12. I knew it was too good to be true.. How can Arsenal have a fully fit squad with all our star players fit???

    I knew it was too good to be true to have all our main players fit at the same time..

    But we will cope well. Lets all the players at least for this one game adopt Sanchez’s hustling attitude..

    LETS GO THE GUNNERS..

  13. If our attack consisted of Giroud, Walcott, Cazorla, Ozil, that’s still a pretty good line up without Sanchez. We will also probably have Coquelin and Ramsey behind them.

    We have a good GK. The only person we are missing in defense is Debuchy but Bellerin is doing a fantastic job.

    Our Bench is awesome to with likes of Gabriel, Monreal, Chambers, Rosicky, Welbeck, Szczesny.

    I think we have the team to beat Spuds
    Without Sanchez we can still win.
    With Sanchez we are lethal.

    COYG
    0-3 Arsenal

  14. The Gunners must first of all approach this game with caution. Walcott should be conscious of what Danny Rose did to him a year ago at the Emirates stadium. And he should therefore be very careful of Rose’s two-footed sludge and tackles. Other Gunners too should be careful not fall pray to Danny Rose’s leg breaking antics. The Gunners are unfortunately without their talisman for this North London – top of the table clash at the Lane, between the infom Spuds and the inform Gunners on Saturday’s afternoon. I want the Gunners to play the Spuds with respect if they want to beat them to the maximum 3 points at stake. Because the spuds are at home, infom and on song as they have reached a Wembly final. And are with their talisman – Harry Kane. Whereas the Gunners don’t have their massive Alexis for this big local derby game. The lackluster Villans cannot be compared to those current infom Spuds. But the Gunners can win this game if they hold-on to their new order of practical devastating precision goal scoring attacking football. That is de-emphasizing possession base tiki-taka game for now.

  15. What wrong with them being yank?..does that make them love arsenal any less than you?…if ur not from England ur not a real arsenal fan right?..nothing wrong with warching basketball or whatever u wanna watch when ur dear arsenal is not playing u fricking idiot

  16. We need to have a guarded respect for the spuds as they are playing well and are on a roll, likewise though so are we and I feel that Santi will be looking to make his mark yet again, another player I’d like to see make an appearance is Rosicky as he always seems to turn it on when playing against the spuds, in my mind he was the real reason we won twice on the spin a few seasons ago when we were behind. Not impressed with Welbeck to be honest and I think he should be a bench sitter. Wallcott with have to be careful but I feel a win is on the cards.

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