Arsene Wenger has already been hit with some bad news during the current international break, with two very important Arsenal players in Alexis Sanchez and Hector Bellerin picking up injury problems and making us wonder whether the old injury curse is coming back to bite us on the bum once again.
The boss also got some good news though, when it came out that the injury to our Chilean striker was not as bad as first feared and that he may even be fit enough to play for his country next week. Wenger is clearly worried that doing this could lead to a much longer spell on the sidelines, so from an Arsenal point of view we really needed Chile to win their game against Colombia last night.
This would have made their qualification for the 2018 World Cup a lot more likely and would also have shown their manager that he could get by without Sanchez. Instead the Chileans were held to a draw by Colombia and this leaves them fifth in the South American table, which you can see on the Sky Sports website.
That would be enough to earn them a play-off against a team from the Oceania group but with Argentina currently in sixth and just one point behind them, Chile are in a precarious position and this makes it more likely that they will risk the Arsenal striker next week.
So is this international break turning into a real nightmare for Arsenal?
Bob.
At some point Alexis himself has to realize what’s best for him. Does he want to play that badly for his country only to be sidelined for the next 2 months, and miss a whole bunch of EPL and CL games? Doctors and physios aside, he should know his body best, and make an educated decision. Does it still hurt or feels uncomfortable? Then he should rest. But regardless of whether he plays or not against Uruguay, we too have to be careful with him. Do I want us to win against Utd next week? Badly. But if it means losing Sanchez to a long term injury, then I’d say let’s take our chances, and leave him out of the squad for that game.
Gnabry scored for Germany :0)
Its nice to see how former players are doing
At the end of the day Arsenal pays Alexis’ huge salary, not Chile
I understand what playing for his country means to him but Club should come first
Hats off to gnabry always rated him as a quality player regardless of it being San Marino that boy is going onto bigger things for sure, yet were stuck with donkey Ox
Is it just me or are we, the global football fans, inundated with too much football anyway? I am so bored with all these international breaks. Who wants to watch Germany – Luxembourg?
There are too many meaningless international games and too many interruptions to national competitions as a result.
Not to speak about the fact that injuries in meaningless international games can effect more meaningful national competitions.