Oh the irony of it all! It now seems extremely fortuitous that Arsene Wenger decided to convert Alexis Sanchez into a centre-forward at the beginning of the season, because as expected the God of Injuries has decided to visit us again, as he does every single season.
Of course we knew from the start, as we did last season, that Danny Welbeck would not be ready to play for us until at least Xmas, but the other injuries to our strikers came as a bad surprise. First of all this week it was revealed that Chuba Akpom has a stress fracture in his back and will also be in the treatment room until the New Year.
Then that very same night Arsenal played Reading in the League Cup and their defender Danzell Gravenberch made a very cynical tackle on Lucas Perez, and given him ankle ligament damage. Arsene Wenger is not very happy about it! “It’s very frustrating because he worked very hard to get there,” he said. “Of course he is absolutely gutted, because it’s an injury coming from nowhere, and a stupid one, because it was a deliberate kick.
“It’s a similar tackle to Xhaka, but there was no red card. But the red card would not have helped Lucas. What is most important is that he’s out for six to eight weeks.
“The tackle was not needed. I think it was a more frustrated reaction from the player. He had no chance to get the ball like that, but you have to deal with that. Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you get a bad injury. In this case it’s unfortunate.”
So our only recognised central striker is Olivier Giroud, who himself has only played 30 minutes since returning from his own “toe injury” and it is unlikely that Wenger will want to pitch him in for 90 minutes straight away. So how lucky are we that Wenger decided to try Alexis in that position.
God forbid if the Chilean gets an injury!