When the recent north London derby clash between Arsenal and Tottenham in the Premier League was ending I did not even realise at the time that our Spanish international star Hector Bellerin had picked up an injury thanks to a rash and needless tackle by Danny Rose, which was later criticised by Arsene Wenger.
But we soon learned not only that the young right back had a knock but that it could be some time before he was able to play again. Even though the Gunners have a few options to fill the Spaniard´s boots, including Jenkinson, Debuchy, Gabriel and Coquelin, this was quite a blow as Bellerin has become a big player for us over the last few years.
So when he was joined in the treatment room by Debuchy at the weekend and Jenkinson was not even on the bench there was real concern that the right back position could be a big problem, which is why the latest injury update on Bellerin on Sky Sports is so welcome.
The Arsenal defender has revealed that his recovery is coming along better than expected and even though he is not exactly sure about the new date for his return to the pitch his declaration that he was set to start running again this week suggests to me it will not be long as he has only been out for a few weeks so far.
Bellerin said, “It’s going really good. Better than I expected. It is a hard injury to recover from and a bit painful.
“But I am going to try to be running from this week and hopefully I’ll be back on the pitch in less than four weeks.”
If Hector does start running this week and does not suffer any setbacks I think he could be back in action sooner than four weeks and with Arsenal set to travel to Man City in the league on December 18th, how big a boost could this injury news be?
Bob.
It’s always great to hear news like this, however, I’m worried that he’s going to be rushed into playing before completely recovering from his injury. I’d rather we stick with Jenks or Gabriel until Bellerin is fully fit. Hate to see our players suffering setbacks all the time.
Play Paulista until Bellerin can play in U23 and or efl game. I don’t want to see what happened to Debuchy who was rushed back by an ‘experienced’ manager happen to Bellerin.
Four weeks? Tell me it’s not true.
We need the young lad badly, especially against City. He knows how to handle them.
At least with Gabriel we get some strong defensive cover, it is Bellerin’s pace and attacking threat (especially on the counter) that’ll be missed. Jenkinson has good physical qualities, but he seems to over-hit or waste so many good opportunities.
Bellerin will more likely pass the ball off to Cazorla, Ozil, Alexis. Jenk’s seems to look for the in swinger, but he is next to useless at finding the right ball, some may think that’s a little harsh, but I struggle to remember games where he proved successful at this.
He gets good pace on the ball, but I’m not sure that he looks up intending to pick someone out. The Prem have very good headers of the ball, bread and butter, you need to be reaching your own man rather than just throwing it in.
I’d prefer to see Coquelin at right back ahead of Jenkinson, Coquelin was a very tidy full-back when called upon. Overall though, I’d like to see how far Gabriel can take us. He doesn’t get many games so he’ll want to show us what he can do. What it also does is it gives our defence more height, it adds to our defence from set pieces. There is a chance that he can improve on his forward play. I’ll be honest, if we didn’t have Gabriel and Coquelin I’d be very worried about losing a massive player like Bellerin. I’d be thinking about moving one of the left backs over to cover for him.
We’ll see how the next game or two go with this. If we’re lacking we should ask Coquelin to hold the fort down, if not well then it’s another example of our much improved squad depth. I look forward to seeing how it goes, and I look forward to a timely return from our very own golden boy.
I remember reading he was back in training last week?