With Arsenal’s German contingent of Ozil, Mertesacker and Podolski still recovering from winning the World Cup, we were obviously all worried when we heard that the other important half our defensive duo, Laurent Koscielny, picked up a knock on his ankle against Man City last week. But Arsene Wenger has now put our minds to rest when he said: “Koscielny had a knock on his Achilles but he should be available for Saturday,”. So Kosciely will now be free to partner Nacho Monreal or Calum Chambers, depending on who Wenger chooses.
Secondly we have our new backup keeper David Ospina, who is still injured from the World Cup. Wenger explained: “Ospina is two or three weeks away,” Wenger added. “He has a thigh strain from the Brazil v Colombia game.” So it seems that Damien Martinez will be backup for Szczesny tomorrow.
Otherwise we have received the good news that Abou Diaby is back training with the first team, maybe will actually play for once before his next injury!
Wenger has also revealed that our Japanese winger Ryo Miyaichi is “very close” to returning to training, but he is very quickly turning into another Diaby with his injury record. Wouldn’t we all love to see him fulfil that brilliant early promise he showed when on loan at Feyenoord a few years ago?
We may have to wait a little longer for our other classy winger Theo Walcott to return as Wenger admitted today: “Theo is, as I always said, end of August or start of September. That is back into training of course.”
Last,but not least is Serge Gnary. I have absolutely no idea what is wrong with the young German, (Can anyone tell me?), not even Wenger knows when he will be available again. “He is not ready as well.”the manager said. “I am not sure about the timeframe at the moment.”
So thats all for now. Let’s hope we don’t get any more additions to the list tomorrow!