Arsene Wenger was clearly delighted by the strong performance of his Arsenal players last night, but he was just as clearly devastated and almost at a loss for words that the victory over Borussia Dortmund exacted the heavy price of two more Gunners joining the ever growing and continued injury list that is in danger of destroying a second season in a row for Arsenal.
As reported by The Guardian, Wenger had nothing but bad news for us on the injury front, with the innoucuous lloking knock picked up by Mikel Arteta revealed as a calf problem that will see Arsenal without their captain and best deep lying midfielder for a lengthy period of time. Our young French striker Yaya Sanogo may have been hoping for a run in the side after bagging his first senior Arsenal goal, but he was forced off with a hamstring issue which is unlikely to be resolved quickly.
And the Frenchman also gave an update on Jack Wilshere and his ankle problem, declaring that the midfielder will see a medical specialist today to determine whether the ligament damage requires surgery or not, which would mean about three months in the treatment room.
Wenger said, “The injury situation is a problem because we have many games and we lost two players tonight. The first one is Arteta, who again has a calf problem and that looks quite serious, and we lost Sanogo as well on a hamstring problem. Wilshere sees a specialist, finally and we’ll know more on Thursday night.”
The manager also spoke about his hope that Arsenal would have a much stronger squad available for the knockout phase of the Champions League, but if things carry on the way they have been doing, we might nit even have 11 fit players by then.
You are to blame for this Mr. Wenger. I apologize for saying this on this forum and not to him face to face. Facepalm.
yeap, Wenger’s fault:
> not rotaing squads (or not buying quality players so can rotate squad)
> not substituting players in tym…did u expect Sanogo to play 90mins..get real
> younger players already being overplayed (watch OX abd Chambers) don’t suffer burnouts soon
i cannot believe our injury record is due to only bad luck: there needs to be some serious investigating into why our players get injured more often than others. and then AFC needs to fix this problem. even with all of wenger’s bizarre decision making, had we had significantly fewer injuries, we would have done much much better in the last 4 years. this is the #1 issue we need to look at at the club.
So, we only have one defensive midfielder now. Too bad. Even Wilshere who some had hoped could be converted to a DM is out injured. Flamini is going to get so many games now, he’s going to regret it.
With Arteta and Willshere out…Id play Kos back at CB and put Monreal as DM…he’d be better than Flamini – wats the bet?
@Amith
Much easier to bring on Bellerin at RB and shift Chambers to DM. Not saying that Nacho wouldn’t do well at DM, he just might.
The good thing about Nacho is his passing. He’s as tough as a nut as well if needs be. For a full back, he’s a bit off pace (against some wingers). I don’t think we’ll ever see him as a DM, LoL, the thought has never even occurred to me 😀
chambers at DM would be epic.
I am looking for a Nokia charger, small pin
that would work too…ne1 but Flamini…
Flamini is not a great DM but no where terrible as many said.
Watch the Swansea again, he marked Siggurdson completely out of the game (except the great free kick of course). Flamini does not have the positioning sense of Arteta, the physical like some DM but he has his strength as well: combative, strong in tackle, discipline and always work his ass off.
Stop writing our players off
Many of Gunners here wished we have signed either Sven Bender or Gundogan from Dortmund. See who bossed the midfield yesterday game – Ramsey & Arteta or Sven Bender & Gundogan. Give our players some credits, the grass is not always greener on the other side
The only positive from this is that we now have to get a dm or deep laying playmaker in January. With arteta injured again surely bows the time to replace him with only 7months left on his contract.
Food for thought?
Inigo martinez 10-15m
is one of the best young cb in la liga and will be a Spanish starter come next euro.he is a very good player and with moyes taking over at sociadad we could try and negotiate to get him. We could also advise him to get arteta on a pre agreement in January.
Dm or deep playmaker Who to sign?
Khedira12m dm
The obvious choice, he has a presence on the pitch he can sit and defend better than arteta and he has the ability to drive forward powerfully like wilshire but he is of a sturdier build. For that price he is a bargain.
(28)Enzo Perez 20m deep playmaker
He is a player similar to arteta but quicker.he plays this role for Argentina and benfica very well and was recently linked to Man U.
(29)Cabaye 10-15m …Or on loan deep pm
He is a very good player and was one of the best in the prem at his role he wants to prove himself and he would have his good friend debuchy here plus he wouldn’t need time to settle, a ready made arteta replacement.
(28) jao moutinho 17m deep pm
He is a very talented player of the cesc mold. With ramsey and wilshire inconsistency he would make an excellent replacement for arteta and would mean we still have space for a marquee dm when flamini and diaby contract runs out in the summer.
We have some talented players in the U21 squads, they should have been getting game time as the transfer window is quite a few games away and more injuries were bound to happen.
If they had been allowed to play who knows who could have stepped up and helped us scrape through to new year.
Sanogo is starting to look like Diaby MKII, how many games has he been unavailable for through injury?
I don’t think Wenger will ever buy a DM, it would be like admitting he was wrong and he would hurt the club before admitting he was wrong…
Like I hoped yesterday, we did have the Sanchez of this season and the Cazorla of 2 seasons ago on the same pitch against BVB. It wasn’t the Ramsey of last season though, but there were encouraging signs of improvement.
head hurts, thank u arsenal for making us celebrate yesterdays win like it champions league final.
lost my phone and my wallet.
it sounds crazy but maybe these injuries will force wengers hand.
(kallstrom is at the airport waiting -as we speak)
@muffdiver
My bad dude. Didn’t know it was you I lifted the phone and wallet from. Oh yeah. Ignore the credit card bill for 2 tickets to Tahiti and the phone bill to NY…Lol
And, here we go again! Why do I feel as if this has happened before? Oh, wait, because it has!
wilsheir injury is a blessing in disguise we play better and win without him
Amongst all the underperformers he performs better then the rest. But that doesnt matter bec he is not a sunny boy nice guy to some.
letting Sagna go was not a good idea, thank god we have Diaby as back up!
yeah! ..oh wait….
We did not let him go. He went for the big bucks. Besides, should have he stayed on the pitch and not replaced with Zabaleta City would have lost against a 10 man Bayern.
I actually have no issue with letting Sagna and Vermaelen go. Together with Bendtner these were one of the much needed changes. Vermaelen is nowhere near the pitch and Bendtner is not seeing much minutes at Wolfsburg.
Sorry if I seem negative, but the recent injuries may force Wenger to sign a true DM.
Who do you suggest?
Kondogbia… I would go nuts if we signed him!
Nothing a like a Dm
He’s a predominantly a defensive-midfielder that can play centre-back or left-back…
That sounds like a solid DM to me…
Just put Chambers in the Dm poz and use Bellerin as a Rb ( he is good enough). But knowing Wenger he will use Flamini till he gets himself off the pitch with red cards or he aswell picks some random injurie soon after up.
I finally agree with you on something re Chambers
Me too. Bellerin, has shown great promise.
Off Topic.
Aguero shows that every team who aspires big needs a predator in the striking role. We create a lot of chances but our end product is horrible. This is not going to change as long we have strikers who turn their backs against the goal and strikers who somehow cant score besides creating chances on their own ( Danny ).
I am not the bigest Walnutt fan but man i do miss his goals.
Aguero at arsenal would be a winger.
Yea, if even Merti finds himself on the wings (shocked when i saw him ), Aguero not playing as a striker would be a sure thing, hehehe.
Great win last night and a good team performance.interesting to read from Martinez the team have been practising defending counter attacks all week so progress in our defending which is great to hear.
Let’s use last night to kick start our season starting with a win on Saturday COYG !
i see that arsenal have won their 1st match after the international break from football which is stupid.ON other news a rumour popped up and a link to Isco who plays for Real in the jan window,if this is true than not only is Wenger a lousy manager but has wasted ozil’s talents of 42.5 million and add another 36.5 for Isco cause he ain’t going to chase after lost causes.Maybe he is just interested in attacking football but does not know how to use it.
Idk..but for some reason the last 2 game arteta looked really composed but hey….now he’s injured thats our luck at the moment ..if there was ever a time when diaby need the to be fit its now…I know he wont tho just wishful thinking….btw where is he?..im to the point where I would try anything other than famini…
Since the 60th minute I was watching for Subs warming up as it was time to bring fresh legs, Arteta not a kid anymore, Sanogo a kid that has not played a full game in his Career, what the Old Man does NOTHING, keep them playing till they break….brings POD with 12 mins remaining and the final insult to a player Campbell when there are few secs on the clock (turned out 4 of injury time)….meantime Klopp that from my point of view did not want to win this game, had players warming up since the first half….the problem is WENGER however you want to see it
1- We’re a small squad (16 we need 21)
2- Lack of rotation
3- Waiting for subs until 80th min every game
Most of our players are not fit enough to go past 65th mins, they go low on battery and should be subbed if subs are available. players with the exception of GK and back 2 should be rotated depending on the schedule, i mean this is common sense
Do u ppl observe that the type of ball we played yestday was up ball, not our usual tiki taka ground ball.
Wenger must know what he is up to,,, I suspect he is committing suicide… No sane person behaves like this… And to here him say what he said made me sad…. Like, “If u believe what you are doing is right, u kip doing it”… I don’t think you are being fair to yourself and to the Arsenal family boss….