Everyone connected with Arsenal should be crossing their fingers, toes and anything else that is cross-able this week and hoping that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain reacts well to the injection he has had to try to ease the groin problem that the Gunner picked up near the end of Saturday’s excellent win over Newcastle United.
The England international star had up to that point produced a very mature and dynamic performance alongside Mathieu Flamini at the heart of our midfield, which was a great relief after Aaron Ramsey had joined Mikel Arteta and Jack Wilshere on the injury list.
Chamberlain played more passes and had more touches than any other of our five midfielders and his passing accuracy was second only to Flamini’s. Wenger has previously stated that he thought this role would become Chambo’s usual position but he has not had too many games there so it was a very impressive performance.
The problem is, however, who to play instead of him against Liverpool. The midfield injury situation is the reason Wenger recalled Francis Coquelin from Charlton, so he will probably be the choice, but can he do the business for us?
Coquelin has often played at full back as well and is much more of a defensive player that Jack, Rambo or the Ox. Alongside Flamini, the Frenchman will certainly give the Arsenal defence good protection, although we will obviously lose a bit more thrust and creativity going forward. But in an away game against a big rival, that might not be such a bad thing.
With Welbeck, Cazorla, Alexis and Giroud in front of them, maybe the two central midfielders will not need to be too adventurous anyway. I know that he was only on the pitch for about six minutes, but he did seem comfortable out there and has played five games in the Championship in the last month or so. Do you think Coquelin can get the Gunners through?
The reason why we get so many injuries is because wenger doesn’t train the players hard enough so there not prepared for the games.
its the other way around bro
Naw think about it. Our players never get injured during training, only during the games.
Wenger plays the same players over and over again, and they all sooner or later end up getting unjuries. To much favorisem going on which hurts all players, the ones who play do get injuries, the ones who dont play are being froozen out and do lose their form.
Mourinho plays pretty much the same team each time when he can ie: his best line-up. 7 or 8 of his team have played every game. Wenger has used 27 different players so far this season. Think you are misrepresenting the facts to suit.
Maybe so, but he is not prone to favorisem and makes many subs during the game.
Chelski players are stronger, that is the difference.
Our players get muscled off balls way too often and the injuries show that they don’t have the strength to play a number of tough games.
It has to be down to the preparation.
One season would be a blip but the highest consistent injuries in the PL since 2002? Come on that needs to be dealt with.
Coquelin is the only real defensive midfielder we have…i would be against pairing him with flamini
heard the players only do ball work. No emphasis on muscle building like chelski. No wonder our players seem to be perennially injured.
Solve? What other choices do we actually have in the first place?
Coquelin is as good as Kondogbia, Gustavo, Carvalho, Bender, Schneiderlin
He just needs some minutes to prove himself
Thomas rosicky sure can if he gets the chance!
Play Santi with Flamini
Sanchez in middle
Welbeck right
Poldolski left
OG up front
No problem then. We all want Poldolski to get game time. Now he can prove himself to Wenger.
Would rather have the extra experience for this game
Welbeck can’t play right wing I say give Campbell a chance!
Schez
Debucy Mert Chambers Gibbs
Flamini Santi
Welbeck Sanchez PoldolskI
OG
That’s who I would go for, bring Coq in if we need to protect lead. We need to start fast and hit them hard and take away any confidence they have
Let’s not take. Liverpool 4 granted; playing cazorla in an away match in he centre of the midfild; it cld stiffle his impact bcos that position requires a lot of enegy; I think coquelin can be good there; or thomas rosicky; bcos I believ we can really hurt liverpool with our attack but we need 2 protect our backlineand midfield bcos we r depleted; but mert-chambers-debuchy-gibbs(hope. No injuries 2 dem b4 sunday) can do d job; am just scared of Mertasacker