Arsenal’s injury list was long enough before yesterday’s defeat at Southampton, and it just goes to show how bad it is when you see a back three of Lichtsteiner, Xhaka and Koscielny. Luckily Sokratis was only missing because of his one game suspension and can return on Wednesday. Mustafi was also banned but sustained a hamstring injury against Huddersfield. Of course Rob Holding is out for the season, and we are waiting for Dino Mavropanos to return to training.
But of course it can always get worse, and we only found out that Kolasinac was injured when his name wasn’t on the team sheet yesterday, and then at half-time Hector Bellerin couldn’t continue and according to Emery he looks like he will be out for a few weeks. He told Arsenal.com: “We are going to wait tomorrow and Tuesday, and Wednesday we are going play, and then Saturday also. We need every player. Bellerin has a small injury – he is going to be some weeks off I think. Sokratis is coming back and we will see how Mustafi and Kolasinac are, and it is good news Koscielny can be with us for the next matches. It is not a good result but it was important for us [to have them back].”
Yes we have Koscielny back, but having played just the once after six months out he can’t be expected to be up to full speed for a while yet, so there is still no end in sight for our defensive injury crisis.
Is it any wonder we conceded three goals yesterday?
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