Arsenal’s incredible history of injury problems continues as usual with Laurent Koscielny and Alexis Sanchez being taken off during the Norwich game, but it has now been revealed that Santi Cazorla also sustained a knee ligament injury right at the start of the second half, but he was forced to continue playing right until the end of the game.
After the game, Wenger admitted that he knew about the problem saying that Cazorla played the second half “on one leg” and also that “The worrying thing was that it got worse,”. Now farbeit for me to tell Wenger how to do his job, but I can’t stop asking myself why Le Prof didn’t try and mimimize the risk by taking Cazorla off when it was obvious that it was far from being a minor problem.
Yes we all know that Wenger hates making substitutions before the 60th minute unless forced to and he had already put Gabriel on for Koscielny early in the game, but can anyone explain why the Boss didn’t move Ramsey into the middle and bring on Campbell for the right wing?
Campbell actually did come on when Alexis pulled his hamstring, strangely enough in the 60th minute, but Cazorla was still left hobbling around in the middle of the park….
Ten minutes later Wenger then made the tactical change of removing Ramsey and putting the Ox on to try and grab the winner, but surely it must have been blindingly obvious by then that Cazorla was incapable of influencing the game ad in grave danger of making his injury worse, and again Ramsey should have moved to the middle and Cazorla should have been the player leaving the pitch…
I remember not so long ago that Cazorla was dizzy and unbalanced from the start against Tottenham. Again Wenger was aware of it and had Matthieu Flamini warming up for most of the first half, but Le Prof refused to take Santi off the pitch until half-time, but by then we had already allowed Spurs to go 1-0 ahead.
So why does Wenger continue to leave Cazorla on the pitch when injured, but take other players off at the slightest twinge?
What makes it worse is that he knew we couldn’t afford any further injuries, yet keeps risking core players. Questionable decision making to say the least…
It’s kind of strange but
Arsenal does really well
with so many injuries.
So I am thinking the squad we have will be enough.
Haha u sound like Wenger!
Really well? Is that how you think we have done? 2 points from 9 in November? Wenger is the one who always says consistency is important but and although footabll is a game of momentum, we had neither been consistent nor had any momentum for at least one month.
And now as a result of his unwise gambles we have dramatically reduced our chance of beating Olympiacos by 2 goals which, to me, means we have dramatically harmed our chances of a PL title run.
Not to many teams playing in the Europa league on Thursdays have fared well in the PL.
By my standard we have not done well. The only reason we sit close to the top of the table is because of the other inconsistent efforts by our direct competitors not becasue we keep bringing in the points and finding ways to win ugly.
Ppl were saying if Le coq gets injured we wont win the league…nw its him sanchez n cazorla bt stil ppl find reasons to gv them hop that we wil stil win it haha evn the fans hv Wengers syndrom!
Is good that you are not manager otherwise you would call it a day and go home when $hit hit the fan. Of course you can moan but you should stick to do just that. Leave the professionals to try and keep the boat afloat.
Budd there comes a time that you need a new boat to float, it sesames we keep having holes in our Hull and we are repairing with chewing gum
it worked for the titanic…..wait
As I said, the bold move is not to predict failure. Anyone can do that. I just did it. But only as an exercise because this is not the path I want to follow. You can keep doing it, your right.
Budd I’m a Wenger loyalist but even I have my limits of delusion, he is solely to blame for the mess we’ve found ourselves in and you cannot deny it. Stop coming up with excuses for mistakes the manager and the squad have been repeating for as long as I can remember
I think we can still win the league provided we don’t get any more injuries and all the players get back to full fitness ASAP..or better yet if Wenger does go out and get reinforcements in Jan..Losing players of the calibre of Sanchez,Coquelin,Cazorla to injury does not mean we cannot win the league although it does make the task equally more difficult..I still believe in this team cos WE ARE THE MIGHTY ARSENAL .Even with all the injuries we are good enough to beat mid-table and bottom teams..Not many seasons ago we were still beating teams when we had guys like Santos,Alex Song,Arshavin,Squillaci,Almunia,Arteta,Bendtner in the starting line up.
How do you explain this past weekend? We didn’t beat the mid table team. It doesn’t matter if you are good enough to beat mid or bottom of the table teams, if you don’t beat them, you don’t beat them. Only results count and we are not getting results at the moment.
I fear for our next bottom of the table clash at home against Sunderland. According to you are good enough to beat them, I fear an other draw or worse.
We are short in too many aspects of the game with out Sanchez, Walcott, Coq, Santi, Wellbeck, Wilshire
1. we lack goals. Giroud is not a striker that can carry a team. Support (of what?) is his maximum contribution. Ox is inconsistent and hardly a proven goal scorer, Campbell same thing. We will continue to struggle for goals with Ozil are most likely scorer at the moment but that was with the hlep of creative players like Sanchez and Santi who are not available.
2. We lack pace upfront and out wide. With Sanchez gone, Ox will be only attakcing player with pace and he squanders his runs more often than not. Ramsey out wide doesn’t at many goals or much danger, he only offers a level of balance and control. But he will possibly be moved more centrally which hopefully will bring back his goals.
3. Flamini is injury prone and not convincingly consistent after him and DM will be noting more than an experiment.
They only area of our game we might not be short is the back 4 and keeper provided Kos comes back.
IMO winning against Sunderland and Olympiacos would be a bit of an achievement and miracle under current circumstances.
You’re wrong, Campbell, Ozil and RAMBO can get the goals, it’s Ox that frustrates me because he usually makes mistakes that lead to us to conceding
Of course they can get goals and they will have to. So did Flamini. But with 4 PL goals between them, 2 for Ozil, 1 for Rambo and 1 for Campbell all season you can hardly call them goal threats. Koscielny has scored more goals than Campbell and Rambo and the same amount as Ozil. That does not make him a reliable source of goals, albeit more reliable than Rambo and Campbell 😉
They have produced a goal, collectively, in 18% of there appearances this PL season.
When you look at kloop you see how out dated AW really is and that someone now needs to take over
i was shot down about klopp- cos of his last season…everyone suddenly forgetting his recent achievements…i stand by what i said then
he is the best team manager in this league
the difference is wenger does everything -alot more things than klopp ,klopp covers less bases but the bases he does cover he tends to excel in
Is it bad that I’m already scared that Klopp will bring in some amazing players in January and his Liverpool project will be in full swing..
Yes, you should be scared. Liverpool puts a cheeky bid for Sanogo.
He has been given the green light from his previous club to buy from them!
He can prove it next season. Or even this one. Why so impatient? Not believeing in Klopp anymore? Besides, I agree that Klopp has an extrovert passion about the game. You can actually see it unlike Wenger.
there are only one or two players in europe who can do a job like coq bellerin kos cazorla and ozil
cazorla the best passer
ozil the most intelligent player
coq the best defensive midfielder
bellerin the fastest and most skilled defender
kos the best interceptor and interestingly the best finishing defender
with sanchez he might not be the best finisher but he is very skilled and the most durable player
I would say Bellerin has a lot of potential, yet a lot to learn.
I would say Santi is the best passer but played in a position that highlights his weakness defensively against decent oponents.
Coq is great defensively but not as complete of a player going forward that is why he needs Santi next to him to bring the ball forward.
Coq- Santi works in many games but if remains a sub optimal solution IMO. One player is a poor defender and not physical the other is an average passer.
Ideally you combine the two into two players who combined are better defensively and going forward. Vieira- Petit was such a better combination.
Neither passed the ball like Santi or tackled and intercepted like Coq but the both defended better and more physically than Santi and they both were superior going forward to Coq.
Without sounding like Arsen Wanger bashing
most injuries are because of not having a choice of good players on the bench for rotation ( not good enough in terms of for a top club ) so he keeps playing his best 11 if they are not injured and we all know what happens after a while what with international duties and CL other cup games they start cracking,
there is only one way round it and that to sell some players ( Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky, Ospina, Campbell) free up some salaries and buy in three or four top players and use some youth players here and there to rotate,
But we all know that so what is the point of going on and on about the repeated mistakes that occur season after season, would you constantly drive on the wrong side of the motorway because you once did by accident or not knowing and you made it out just with a few dents?
rotation is obv a factor in these injuries- overplaying thru lack of choice.
but clearly theres something else at play…the training methods? the docs? the turf at london colney lol
years now an we’ve still not figured it out…annoying to say the least
im just on a arsenal scouting mission in morrisons aisle 11..
Wenger should learn to trust his bench players. Surely it was far much better to play even Adelaide than to risk Carzola. Wenger is too old and rigid!
Somethings become more clearer when you take a step back and view everything from a non- bias perspective!
Now ask yourself this:
Why is Wenger making so many mistakes and failing in every single department this season?
Surely he is far too experienced for that… no?
Well.. we all know that he can be cunningly devious,
in a genius way!.. So stupidity goes out of the window!
… right?…. So What could be the reason for so many mistakes with judgement for someone who is so smart and experienced?
(Lets beat around the bush… a little bit)
What normally starts to happen when someone stops caring about something? … Neglect? … Does that sound familiar?
Has Wenger already been told that he will be replaced at the end of this season? …. that would make sense to his cloudy judgements of late… and no proper summer signings.
Or could the real reasons be something to do with his private life?
What happen’s to you at work when you have other problems and stresses in your private life? …
it effects your judgement and concentration… right?
Whatever the reasons are, someone has to get a grip of this situation quick, before we end up in the Spuds shadow ?
Yeah,Yeah AKB’s we are only two points off the top, but we should have been 5pts clear!
Don’t forget that the Spuds are only two points behind us
And With a fitter squad too.
This season they will get out of our shadow. They’ve lost just one game so far and they’ve played all the derby games and did dominate Arsenal’s arse on the Emirates. Complacent asshole Wenger will cost us the historical shame we will have to suffer next May. He should leave if that happens.
Arsenal supporter at his best. Don’t give up.
It’s only December and the same was said about Southampton when Pochetinno was the manager but look where they ended. By the end of February I can assure you we would be at least 10 points ahead
I am not sure why you keep saying AKBs here? There are none on justarsenal, maybe two or three. And I am not saying this is bad, it just makes you look silly like talking to the mirror or training against the wall. But then again, you should know better.
I thought that you were the chairman of the AKB board?
?
Hahaha maybe wenger’s private life stresses are filled with being replaced at the end of the season ?
now that makes sense to someone who is suffering from insomnia. .. thanks wenger!
I can’t sleep because of a giant chicken standing on a basket ball… it’s coming to get meeeeeee! ??
Be so nice for pep to come in and AW to go upstairs and do that Jod dean did
I’m not going to shout Wenger out. I’ve said before I think needs better/stronger assistants and coaches to advise him, and I had hoped for DB10 to be that man. Ne ertheless, the whole Norwich hame was a mess from the start. What was the flying thing about? Why did he change the successful team who played DZ when it was clear that Rambo was anywhere near 100%. If Rambo had been on the bench he could have covered for Santi, and not risked either, and to be frank that isn’t hindsight. AW hasn’t been thinking clearly, and he needs to. We need him at this moment like it or not, and now he must have trust and build confidence in players he has appeared to distrust in the past otherwise our ECL and EPL hopes could be severely limited.
What do mean by advice him? ?
This man is completely unadvisable!
He will do the opposite to whatever anyone trys to advise him with.
Even in his interview, he said if someone told him that we must go out tonight!… he would reply “no.. I don’t wany too”
But if someone asked him ” do you want to go out tonight? ”
He would reply ” yes… I want to go out”
He was basically hinting a lot of things in that interview!
You have to shout ” do you want to spend some money mr wenger” ?
do you fancy signing some top top top players mr wenger sir?
Trust me he will say “yes… I will dooooooo it “?
One thing is for sure, Arsene Wenger has no reason of underachieving this season.
True, but on the other hand he is a large part of the reason we are under-performing.
1. Not learning from the past injury habits and as a result buying a high quality DM back-up and high quality striker with all the cash we have in the bank this last summer
2. Over playing players that show signs of fatigue and as a result get injured.
3. Failure to mentally prepare our squad for the first two CL games – the players played like they had right to win without urgency.
These are only 3 of the reasons Wenger controls why we are underachieving.
Arsenal consistently have a bad injury record. It happens every year so it is not bad luck. Shad Forsythe joined at the beginning of last season and I hoped he would make a difference but so far there has been no noticable change in our injury record.
Some recent incidents are
1. Cazorla playing on when injured
2. Alexis playing after reporting a hamstring tightness
3. Theo being sent on to replace Ox before properly warming up.
The above suggest to me that undue risks of injury are being taken with players. The above incidents were followed by the player being injured. It seems to me that the staff responsible for players fitness (and remaining injury free) areeither incompetant, lazy or their advice is not being taken. I suspect that it is the latter.
Our chances of winning a long campaign like the premier league are negligable without improving our injury record. Currently our pace in attack, Alexis, walcott and Welbeck are all injured. Our one and only defensive midfielder is injured. Then there are all the other injuries particularly Cazorla. Any team in the PL with our number of injuries to key players would suffer a drop in performance.
It seems to me that the main thing to sort out at Arsenal is why we are getting so many injuries. Shad Forsythe has a fantastic reputation, is he and others at the club being properly utilised and listened to. Is there someone at the game saying to Wenger “player X is showing signs of injury and needs to come off” etc.
When is Wenger gonna stop taking gambles. Anyway I hope Ramsey steps up his game in cm now santi is injured.
I agree 100% with the content of this article.
Like I said earlier, even if we had no substations left which was not the case, I would have still taken Santi of. It was quite clear from the way he got injured that his knee got bend the wrong way which can only point to ligament issues, if the player keeps limping, and he did so long before Ox came on, you know there is potentially a big problem.
With so many players injured and such a thin squad, you don’t take a gamble on a player who’s contribution you liken to a player playing on one leg.
Just heard the Santi is out for three months, well done Wenger, you’ve broken another player.
Looks like I’d better dust my boots off, I’m gonna be needed! I am 51 but that’s how desperate we are.
#wengerout………………….. no excuse for this, playing a quality player like that instead of just subbing him in. he needs to go, now!
Have to say I’ve never been in he Wenger out brigade, but his refusal/inability to sign quality covering players and his mismanagement of the players he has is unacceptable.
Playing Sanchez when he already has a problem with his hamstring, and not subbing Cazorla when he picks up an injury is the act of a madman.
With the injuries we have, we can kiss goodbye to any trophy this season, plus I’m pretty sure we’re going to get lumbered with the Europa League, can it get any worse!