Arsenal stars to miss just two Premier League games
There was a huge worry among Arsenal fans about losing some of our best players due to the African Cup of Nations which is to be held in January 2022.
Arsenal have crucial first team players in the shape of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Nicolas Pepe, Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny participating in the tournament.
They can be joined up with fresh summer recruits In Yves Bissouma and Andre Onana hopefully. However, the Gunners’ faithful sighed in relief when the Premier League released the fixtures for the 2020/21 campaign.
The Gunners only have two Premier League fixtures during the course of AFCON. Mikel Arteta’s team will play against North London rivals Totten*am Hotspur and Sean Dyche’s Burnley.
Although the players will be missed for the derby, losing them for only a couple of league fixtures should be considered as a win, even though Tottenham will now be hot favourites to win the game on Sites such as this one. But we always beat the Spuds anyway!
AFCON (Africa Cup of Nations) is set to run between January 9th to February 6th 2022.
🇬🇦 Aubameyang
🇬🇭 Partey
🇪🇬 Elneny
🇨🇮 Nicolas PépéPremier League games they will miss:
15/01 – Spurs (A)
22/01 – Burnley (H) pic.twitter.com/JtXrMh9OlS— Connor Humm (@TikiTakaConnor) June 16, 2021
However, the Gunners are expected to play an FA Cup fixture and even a League Cup tie in between the league matches, if they do end up reaching the latter stages (of League Cup).
But Arsenal already have young, talented players who can offset the impact. Folarin Balogun or Gabriel Martinelli can directly replace Aubameyang up front. While Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli can play on either flank to cover up for Nicolas Pepe.
New signings might be brought in to replace Granit Xhaka, Martin Odegaard and Elneny. Many reports have suggested that the Gunners will try to sign two central midfielders. Thus replacing the duo should not be a huge worry for Mikel Arteta.
The big concern will however be of them getting injured in the tournament. That’s where Arsenal will feel helpless.
All the supporters and the club’s board can do is hope. Because those players might aid Arsenal’s finish in the European places, or even Champions League, come the end of next summer.
As long as we don’t buy anymore Africans we should be ok, but if we were considering bissouma, Onana and one or two others, this may, just may make Arteta think again. Rekik although young has also now become African after switching international allegiance, whilst balogun, Nelson, Nketiah and Willock have all been sounded out as well.
OT: according to David Orstein Arsenal have just turned down a bid of around 25M for ESR from Villa that just shows how Arsenal is now perceived by the other PL clubs not a good look sad very sad!
We rejected it so that’s good isn’t it? If we had accepted it then it would be sad! I don’t really understand the gist of your comment.
Oh yes it is good but imagine that a club recently promoted back to the PL who finished mid-table has the belief that they now can compete for players with Arsenal(Buendia)but also going after one our best players with a ridiculously low offer they must have thought they had a chance but also that we must be desperate for cash i can assure that going back several years it’d never have crossed their mind to even try knowing full well we were on a whole different level to them my point is that more and more clubs do not see respect us the way they use to.
Villa are a big club, and a few years ago, were a very big club, winning the European Cup when only League champions could enter before it got diluted and renamed the Champions League. Respect has nothing to do with it, any team can make an offer for any player. They bid for ESR and we told them to do one.
You know full well what i mean i am aware of Villa history and status by several years i meant 8 9 10 years ago if you asked 100 players to choose between both clubs most if not all then would have chosen Arsenal without any hesitations and i also don’t remember Villa bidding for our best players either do you?
Is Arsenal the only club whose players will play AFCON.
Now that we have the verdict,there is no excuse for not signing bissuoma.
All the more reason for Arsenal to buy midfielders instead of throwing around 40 million pounds for a defender, when they have already got 6.