With Arsene Wenger this week breaking the news that most Arsenal fans were fearing by confirming that our combative French midfield star Francis Coquelin had injured his hamstring and at the same time revealing that there was no sign of Santi Cazorla coming back during the month of Janary, the Gunners will be down to the bare bones in central midfield.
But I do not think that the Arsenal fans should be reaching for the razor blades quite yet, because the way that things are looking for us over the next few weeks could mean that we have got lucky with the Coquelin in jury situation, or at least with the timing of it.
Of course it does not help Arsenal that Coquelin picked up the problem at the same time that another central midfielder Mohamed Elneny has headed off to Gabon to play for his national side Egypt in the African Cup of Nations and that he might not return until the February if they go all the way, but in a report on the Arsenal website the manager has set the estimated return date of Coquelin at just a few weeks.
Wenger said, “He is out for three or four weeks now, it is his hamstring. I say three or four weeks because it is a hamstring and he came off, but maybe we will have good news. He will have a scan today, but I always count three weeks.”
So the games that Francis is likely to miss are the FA cup trip to face Preston and Premier League games with Swansea away and Burnely and Watford at home. There is also, we hope, a fourth round FA cup game near the end of January but in all honesty the Gunners should be able to cope with the likes of Ramsey, Xhaka, Chamberlain, Iwobi and Ozil.
The sort of games when Arsenal really need Coquelin are like an away clash with Chelsea and is taking place on February 4th. Not only will Arsenal have our midfield warrior back for Stamford Bridge, but he will be fully recovered and fresh for the fight. Have Arsenal got lucky with this particular injury blow?
Bob.
Fortuitous timing, if an injury can be described as such. You can throw Maitland-Niles into that mix for the cup games. He’s every bit as versatile as the Ox. But these January league matches ARE must win. Each is a 6-pointer in my book.
@Kostafi
Maitland-Niles can handle the pressure. I think he’s ready to slit into the 1st squad. Otherwise slot in Gabe at mid…
Gabriel would be interesting. It’d look like three CB’s, our fullbacks might get better licence to roam. Might end up looking like the Che formation at times, if Alexis played no10 it could look allot like C
Chelsea formation.
@Break-on-through
We would definitely control the midfield like we haven’t done in a while…Where they concentrate on recycling the ball back to our forwards, in a defence heavy 4-3-3.
Yes it’s good that there’s two home prem games and only one away, that’s if the time is exact. At home we don’t need two holding midfielders, and sometimes even one ultra defensive player does not look needed to shield the CB’s. Like the WBrom home game recently, two was definitely not needed. I’d argue you could’ve had Cazorla and Iwobi/Oxlade in that game, as WBrom just knocked it up field and said, lets see if you can pass us. Oxlade might get deployed a b2b now that options are low, I suspect some would prefer that to Ramsey.
you are always asking questions without posting important news, others blogs are already ahead of you, two arsenal players won prize on just concluded Africa player of the year you didn’t report it, no transfer news nothing nothing apart from asking useless questions.
Maitland – Niles get in there! Coyg!
@Bob,No injury to an Arsenal player is classified as lucky or good news,no matter how you twist it,injuries to players are not good news. Which brings me to the question: who’s going to play the role of “dirty but tidy midfielder? Only Coquelin and Sanchez are capable of harassing the opponents without committing dangerous fouls. Those midfielders you mentioned can’t fill in le coq’s shoes perfectly. I hope we win our next game
It’s not good Coquelin is injured at all. There’s no indication we are good enough to pick up max points against Swansea, Watford, and Burnley. Arsenal are erratic at the moment and we need our best players. Now we are going to have a Ramsey-Xhaka midfield maybe. Are we really that confident it’s good enough to pick up max points against those 3 teams? Sounds a bit arrogant to me. We seriously cannot afford to drop anymore points for a long time