Full Arsenal injury update – Bellerin and Elneny out, Maitland-Niles in?

With tomorrows game against Blackpool and the big game against Liverpool coming up on Saturday, Arsenal are going to need all their best players fit and ready for the weekend. We had some bad news against Palace as Hector Bellerin was taken off by Emery, who said after the game: ‘Yes, he’s injured,’

‘I hope it’s not a big injury, but he had muscular pains. ‘I don’t know [whether he’s a doubt for the Liverpool game next Saturday].’

Writing on Twitter, Bellerin himself announced: “Already trying my best to come back asap.”

Another one that is out of contention for the Blackpool game at least is Mo Elneny, who posted a training pic on Instagram, saying: “Soon inshallah (God willing) I will be back”.

In better news, the Standard journalist James Benge is confident that we will have our two left-back’s available again, but will they be fir enough to get a run-out against Blackpool?

And even better news is that Ainsley Maitland-Niles has returned to fitness and played for 70 minutes in Arsenal’s U23 draw with Swansea on Friday night, so hopefully will get more match-fitness tomorrow.

Other than that we still have Laurent Koscielny and Dino Mavropanos recovering but should be available in the next few weeks. It would be great if we could get all our defenders fit at the same time for a change!

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26 Comments

  1. Cannot wait to if see if AMN can progress under Emery, like a lot of our other youngsters have been. Big improvements from Iwobi, and Holding. Guendouzi is flourishing. Bellerin still looks the same defensively, but he’s so much better in attack now.

    We really need a proper LB against Liverpool to deal with Salah, so hopefully all good by the weekend.

    1. Maitland-Niles was electrifying as a left fullback and a DM under Wenger, therefore I expect him to improve more with Emery

      To withstand the threat from Mane and Salah, our wingers must cut the supplies from Liverpool’s fullbacks and our no 10 must not give any space to Liverpool’s deep lying playmaker

  2. U21s playing tonight against Cheltenham where up to 6 players over 21 can be used, so I’m not expecting to see too many academy players against Blackpool.

    Personally, I hope Emery benches or leaves out his best x1 and saves them for Liverpool.
    Leno
    Bellerin/leichsteiner
    Sokratis
    Holding
    Monreal/Kolasinac
    Torreira
    Xhaka
    Guendozi
    Ozil
    Aubameyang
    Lacazette
    Then add 5/7 from the list below for

    Then tomorrow start with
    Cech
    Jenkinson
    Mustafi
    Pleguezuelo
    Bola
    Maitland-niles
    Willock
    Smith-Rowe
    Ramsey
    Welbeck
    Nketiah

    Using 5/7 from the Liverpool list to make the bench tomorrow, most likely
    Leno, Lichsteiner, Sokratis, Torreira, ozil, aubameyang, lacazette

  3. Bellerin is a huge loss. Watching him in that last game I was expecting him to take people on at any moment, similar with Iwobi. They looked tired, mentally tired too. Glad that Niles has returned, but for him it’s about progress, good luck to him. Mkhitaryan needs to hurry up and join the party, now would be good, we need more players stepping up when others are finding it difficult. Teams will deploy certain tactics to try lessen the threat of some our better performers up til now.

    Lichsteiner, he is our best tactical fouler, the man is a pro, he needs to teach some of that to the other players. Xhaka, would have stopped that build up for the second equalizer, had he been in midfield. Torriera, I reckon does know that stuff, but he’s young and he so good at tackling that he thinks he can win everything fairly.

  4. We need decent fullbacks against Liverpool which for me is ideally Monreal at LB and Bellerin at RB. If neither are available I think AMN is our best bet at left back and should be on the bench against Blackpool and perhaps given half an hour or so however the game is going. Lichtsteiner will be a huge liability at right back against Liverpool, but I don’t know who else can play there.

    1. Declan, do you consider a full backs primary duty is to defend? Full backs are called defenders for a reason. I say that as a full back who is woeful defensively , even though very effective going forward, Bellerin can not accurately be described, as you did, as “a decent full back”. A decent winger perhaps, but not as a full back. The likes of Dixon, Winterburn , Cole and Sansom were not merely decent full backs either. They were sublime and proper fullbacks. To call Bellerin a decent defender is to misunderstand or perhaps not actually know what a decent full back really is. The last even moderately good full back we had was SAGNA; THE LAST GOOD ONE LAUREN AND THE LAST EXCELLENT ONE WAS COLE. All others since those have been subpar, like Clichy, at best, through to woeful like Santos and Bellerin. Monreal is the best by far currently and he is only so so. I exclude Licht, who has not yet had a real chance in his proper postion to show what he can do. He won seven consecutive titles though in defence mad Italy, so I would suggest he is rather better than some Gooners seem to think.

      1. Maybe Bellerin is not good in defending, but neither is Dani Alves. However, both are excellent in attacking

        Bellerin and Monreal seem to be instructed to focus in attacking instead of defending. I agree that they shouldn’t be called as fullbacks, because of their tendencies to move forward frequently

        Sagna was a great in defending, but Bellerin is more threatening than him in the right wing

        1. Have to agree with a lot you say Jon but I believe he’s the best we’ve got in that position. Lichsteiner is pretty useless when someone’s running at him and once passed has no pace to catch up.

          1. Declan , do you think Licht has had a proper chance yet? Cos I don’t! Surely he is entitled to a few full games in his natural RB position before judgement?

            1. ?Lichtsteiner is obvious a poor RB having won 7 titles in Italy, where defending is so under valued. (Irony)

              1. That’s the problem right there for me – 7 seasons. He’s now knocking on a bit and has probably lost a bit of speed. He’s had to foul quite a few times in attempts to stop his man. I think Declan has him summed up correctly.
                For me Monreal on the left and AMN on the right are as good as we have vs Liverpool.

        1. Morning all
          Is it a toss up between Lichtsteiner or Bellerin ?
          Lichtsteiner is a proper defender and hasn’t the legs or pace to get up and down all day
          Bellerin is a wingback and hasn’t got a clue on how to defend …yet

          If you ask me.. then against the big boys I would have Lichtsteiner in all day long as he will stick it to them
          Teams with a softer belly then bellerin gets the shout because we can recover from the mistakes he makes
          In a word ..we need a new rb dender/wingback. What ever you want to call that position now days

  5. MY TEAM SATURDAY;KELSEY/WILSON;MCNAB;STOREY;RICE;MCLINTOCK;ARMSTRONG;CLAPTON;EASTHHAM:RADFORD;GEORGE;GRAHAM.

      1. I think I’d like Rice at RB, Nelson at LB with Peter Simpson and Frank Mclintock at centre backs. Radford and Kennedy up front and wee Geordie patrolling the touchline.

      2. I950’s through to 1970s actually. Kelsey and Danny Clapton played in the fifties, KELSEY RETIRED WITH AN INJURED BACK, GOT WHILE PLAYING FOR WALES AGAINST BRAZIL IN 62-63 SEASON. I CONSIDER KELSEY OUR SECOND BEST ARSENAL KEEPER IN MY TIME, BEHIND ONLY SEAMAN.

    1. I loved Bob wilson but I loved Jack Kelsey even more. John you only played 9 outfield players so if you don’t mind I’d just like to add Peter Simpson to the team

        1. You forgot Peter Simpson? Possibly the greatest left half, as they were then called, who also played centre half wonderfully well. Greatest, apart from Bobby Moore and Norman Hunter and would walk into any Prem team, bar NONE, today. If he were young today he would get 120 England caps, injury permitting.

  6. We should have a combination of first team starters and youngsters against Blackpool

    Youngsters alone won’t be good enough to defeat Blackpool.

    We should play for example: Ramsey, Welbeck, Leno, Nkteiah, Niles, Eleny, Mavrapanos, Smith-Rowe, Jenkinson, iwobi, Mustafi,
    Or something like that
    I want to win every tournament we enter and every match we play. We should not be tournament SNOBS. I want hardware!

    1. I am not a hardware snob either, so you may have my old saucepan to keep, though it has seen better days. Like it’s owner!

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