Some Arsenal fans may be wondering why I have not included the long term injury of the Manchester United and France midfielder Paul Pogba in this article about how Arsenal could benefit from the injury problems hitting our big Premier League rivals, and the reason is definitely not because I do not see them as a threat.
To be honest I think that any team finishing above Jose Mourinho’s side at the end of this season will either be champions or runners up, but I do not think they are missing Pogba all that much. They may even be doing better without him so perhaps Arsenal fans should be wishing the ridiculously expensive Frenchman a speedy recovery.
I do think that both Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Morata are much bigger losses for their respective clubs Man City and Chelsea though, so with the football media reporting that both strikers could be set to miss around six weeks of action, Arsenal really need to keep the pressure on and hope it tells.
Fortunately for us, the Gunners are due to face Man City in the Premier League on November 5th and we will be hoping for some fireworks around the City goal. Aguero should still be out of action then and that could play a huge part, as long as Arsenal are on it.
If no other club exploits the absence of their star striker then we must. Unfortunately we do not face Chelsea while Morata is absent, unless he does what many Arsenal players have done and take much longer to return than first expected, but other clubs could take advantage and with Arsenal exerting pressure by winning our own games I reckon cracks could appear and soon widen at Stamford Bridge.
All Wenger and the Arsenal players can do is to win our own games, but if we do that could the pressure and the injury problems cause Man City and Chelsea to falter?
Bob.
I hate articles that discuss benefiting from other teams injuries. Top teams don’t do this. They concentrate on winning regardless of other teams lineups. It’s really sad to hope or get happy with injuries in other teams. Aguero, Morata, Pogba are very good players. I want to see them play and definitely not happy they are injured.
Seriously, this also shows that we didn’t do the job this summer by getting everyone we need. If we had got Lemar, a top CM or 2 (ie box2box, def mid, cam) and perhaps another Top CB, we would be in a much better position. I want an Arsenal team who can go out there and win with confidence in themselves
Do you really think other fans are not happy when we lose players to injury? You seem to live in an idealistic world where every team always has their best players available and of course with the Arsenal team being so much better than the rest (in your opinion) we would waltz away with the EPL title without breaking out of a canter. Contrary to you I want all our rivals to have bad luck, injuries, bad refereeing decisions etc etc because that’s the way things are and rival fans wish us exactly the same. Perhaps you could step down from your impossible high horse, get your head out of cloud cuckoo land and smell the freakin’ coffee. Remember, we have Wenger to contend with – they don’t!
Squad depth will have a
huge impact on results.
Injuries can be critical
especially with European games
and Internationals to also play.
Arsenal does though have a huge advantage over the 5 ECL sides
by being able to play only the “B” and “C” players in the cups.
Man U have not played any of the top 5 teams
so face a massive schedule pre Xmas.
Arsenal having already played Liverpool and Chelsea away
now have Utd and Spurs at home and the one big away game comes
after Arsenal are at home to Belgrade whereas City play Napoli in Italy.
But it could come down to games like the surprisingly in form Watford
and the badly out of form but still potentially dangerous Everton.
City having beaten Chelsea away have the inside running
but they tanked last season so its early days still.
Arsenal can still win the league.
Ok I said “could”
The Europa is a blessing. We can play a young team with a sprinkling of experienced players who are short of a starting place in the Premiership. if we were in the CL we would have had to play our best players in the group phase and run them ragged, qualify in second place and then get slaughtered in the KO phase. This has been the harbinger of our mid-season slump for several seasons now.
How about the other main contenders do we need to be interested in their condition? Probably. However, we should be more concerned with eviscerating the “Lucky 13” that’s 78 points. Our title /top four chances take a hit once we drop points against any of the “13” For any game lost against the “13” we must win two games against the “Top 6”. Otherwise it would be impossible to make 80 points which is the entry level for a title charge. And the farther you are below 80 Pts the farther you are from a top four finish
Now we wish other players to have injuries so that we can win our games? Its lack of moral values. We need our opponents to have a full squad, then beat them (home or away). If they beat us, then we have to solve our own problems.