With a sudden injury crisis hitting Arsenal in the central midfield area like an unexpected punch in the stomach, I was hoping that Arsene Wenger would be able to call on our France international Abou Diaby, as the long legged Frenchman continues on the road to resurrecting his Arsenal career.
But in the latest team news and injury update reported by Arsenal.com, the boss poured cold water on that, at least for the Champions League clash with Galatasaray this evening anyway. It is not such a disaster, I suppose, as Jack Wilshere has passed a fitness test and is available to start alongside Mathieu Flamini in the centre.
But I would have expected Diaby to at least be fit enough to make the squad, as it has been over a week since he completed over an hour in a high energy encounter with Southampton. And Diaby has already played a full 90 minutes for the reserves this season, so the club are being perfectly careful with him in order to avoid an injury recurrence. It certainly doesn’t sound like he has a problem from the manager’s words.
Wenger said, “I left Abou Diaby out as well because he’s not completely there yet.”
We know that Diaby will not be playing every game even if he is classed as fully fit, as recovery time seems to be one of the major causes of his problems, but Wenger does rate him highly and is perhaps going to cherry pick games for him. I wonder if the Premier League trip to Chelsea on Sunday could be one of them, because that is where his experience, tackling and all round ability could come to the fore. What do you think Gooners?
Yes I hope so, if he does get the nod who will it be for? The obvious candidate is Falmini but Diaby has never been a true DM and playing him and Wilshere, one or even both of them will need to be far more disciplined than they like to be. If he starts against Chelsea it will be a make or break game I feel, it will be high intensity in midfield, lets just hope he is up to it.
A “SUDDEN” injury crisis that seems to happen every year, huh? How about an expected injury crisis?
why does wenger even think he can rely on Diaby’s fitness…
He has no choice, he has to try Diaby in DM, Arteta and Flamini obviously are not working. If Diaby succeeds Wenger will be a genius, if Diaby gets hurt, which is highly likely, Wenger will look like he gave Diaby a final chance and Diaby couldnt use it. SO its win-win for Wenger.
The old fool needs excuses to hide from.
Something with the thigh I heard Wenger the other day. He said it’s becoming a concern.
hahaa, go slow on the old man 😀
He’s made mistakes and he is a truly frustrating man at times. But qualifying year on year for the champions league is hardly us being dragged through the gutter. Should we be kicking on? Absolutely! But give credit where it is due. Spuds still want a taste of ecl, Liverpool spent years in the wilderness (and don’t think they’ll cut it this year), man utd dropped out of the top four spot spectacularly last season, and if Chelsea hadn’t won it a few years back their fans would have been watching them on channel five. If you’re playing every year in one of the most prestigious competitions in world football, that’s not a club in the gutter. As it stands we’re kinda just making up the numbers in it unfortunately and that needs to be dealt with. God help you if we don’t make it this year though.
A competition he never was able to win, pathetic.
I would rather have 5 EPL chMpionships in the last decade and fall out of CL places once then not win the EPL for 12 years and make it to the CL with a qualifying game year in year out.
I’m not too sure about that “experience” your talking about comes from, he has probably played around 10% of the games available since he got here, Wilshere is more experienced than Diaby!
But put that aside, I think he is class, and I can’t wait to see more of him (hopefully) on a regular basis!
Haha Diaby could be a qualified Doctor for the experience he has had on the treatment table!
Is it true? Did Arteta get a one year extension to his contract? Why? How could that be good for the team? He is getting older and slower. Some players, are able to compete well into their thirties, Arteta has had to change positions in Arsenal and never really excelled in DM, where physicality is most important, now on his older legs we want him to do what he couldnt do when he was younger. It really doesnt make sense, he could be a decent CM or CAM for a top 10 side but a DM for Arsenal at 33? I just dont get it.
He got an extension because he got his tooth fixed and his hair is parted with barbers preciseness
They should have made this approach with Diaby from the beginning, if he gets sidelined for a long time again then I think it is time for him to hang up his boots but up until now we have known he has injury issues and yet whenever he is available he has been thrown into important matches straight away and as a result been out almost straight away as well. Diaby does NOT suit Wenger’s style of overplaying players instead of rotation.
I have a bad feeling about the next two games. I feel they are crucial to our season and if we lose both, well it will be interesting to see what Wenger has to say.
He will be like: “tllk to my hand, i have my 8m a year and i dont give a damn.”
Arteta, Flamini, Coquelin, Rosicky, Podolski, Diaby, over 20 million a year in salaries, not a single decent game between them. The reason why we cant pay top salaries to top players is because we keep carrying too many mediocre squad players with high salaries.
Sell them or let them go, Get 1 or two young DMs instead and let our youngsters get some game time.
We could have, Carvalho, Robiot, Zelalem, Gnabry, Akpom in the team instead of these guys.
totally anyone above the age of 28yo should not be playing for Arsenal…they are ageing and slow….
Anyone who is not contributing to to team and is on a high salary is blocking the development of younger talent and is sucking much needed cash from the team. I think it would be better to be able to pay 200K each to two top players then pay 400K to 6 barely playing squad fillers.
Diaby is like going to war with a water pistol in the hand, lol. Even a fit Diaby is not a good Dm, and thats what you all need to understand.
no but it would be nice to add a little size and strength against chelsea in the middle of the park
i would put diarby in there with flamini
the super shrimp can do the dog fights and diarby can take a few balls in the air and win some shoulder to shoulder battles also throw in a few dhalsim leg kicks !!!
If Arteta has got this 1 year extension then that just typifies Wenger. I like Wenger in many ways but he has favourites at the club and for some strange reason, his favourites are the average players like Arteta. Regardless of what happens with Arteta, we need a Khedira/Vidal/Carvalho/Javi Martinez type CDM desperately.
Or a Pogba, I think Pogba at CDM would be an absolute beast.
My big QUESTION is, when will Arsene Wenger get one over Jose Mourhino? It is becoming embarrassingly habitual! Come On Arsene, you earn just as much as he does! Beat him on Saturday or never come back to the Emirates!!!
Was just reading this on another website:
Since 2002 Arsenal have had 889 injuries to players, 14% more than any other PL team.
Now as much as Arsene’s “investigation” last season found nothing, it HAS to be our training methods (all ball work without significant weight & strengthening) causing the issues.
Our style of possession football, the type of player we have, keeping too long injury player in d team, signing cheapest players in d market, these are the reason for our injury problem, player devpt instead of team success is anoda problem. Man U also is facing injury problem, I only respect Chesea n Man City for this.
TBH I think the only one who didn’t see this injury crisis was Wenger ! It wasn’t unexpected at all ! It happens same time every year to the same players !
There’s no way Wenger should even consider Diaby against a big game such as Chelsea as Diaby even without injuries is a liability waiting to happen.
He hangs on to the ball way too much and even for a guy of his stature and build, gets knocked off the ball far too easily !
Against a stern and robust side such as Chelsea and the collective effort they will make to pressure us into to conceding possession, Diaby won’t have a chance. Again, he’ll try to over elaborate situations and hang on to the ball far longer than he needs and at best make a hurried and ridiculous last minute pass which will put someone else in danger. At worst, which is the more likely scenario, he’ll have the likes of Wililan and or Ramirez hunt him down and relive him of possession.
And if he’s not losing the ball he’ll just slow the game down to snails pace by passing laterally until Chelsea get everyone behind the ball.
Unfortunately for Diaby he’s had his injury woes but, even without them, he never ever looked likely to transpire into the Vieria type player that Wenger hoped he would be. He’s too frail, too cavalier and still seems to want to play the game on his terms.
In La Liga, he’d probably get away with most of that but in the premiership he was found out a long time.
Why pan your hopes on a player that’s always been injured and historically has always made the same mistakes time and time again. He’ll get eaten alive against a organised, disciplined and workman like Chelsea midfield for which he’ll try to over compensate and start doing the stupid things he’s renown for.
This is an accident waiting to happen !