Arsene Wenger has already had to cope with more than his fair share of injury and fitness problems in the Arsenal squad this season and once again at the weekend it nearly caused the Gunners a potentially fatal blow to our Premier League title hopes when we lost first Gabriel and then Laurent Koscielny.
The fact that the boss had to cope without the two centre backs that would probably have been the starters for the4 big match against Leicester City did not end up costing us this time but I do not think we can rely on a Welbeck goal in the dying seconds of a crucial game too often.
Kieran Gibbs was also missing from the match day squad because of a knock picked up in training and that makes three defenders out and three central midfielders in the shape of Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla and Tomas Rosicky, so these are two areas where the manager has to be especially cautious.
With an FA cup clash with Hull City just a few days before the visit of Barcelona in the Champions League, Wenger has some big decisions to make about team selection and rotation. I do not think he can afford to risk our Premier League title challenge too much and so may have to sacrifice a little bit in the cup competitions.
Perhaps we could go with a more attacking team for Hull, with a second choice defensive line up including Chambers, Flamini and Mertesacker. And then we could rotate and go with our strongest defenders like Koscielny, Chambers and Coquelin to stop the threat of Barca.
By splitting, however, we would reduce our chances in both cups and so maybe it is time to think about one or the other. What do you guys think?