After more bad luck for Arsenal players in the weekend win at West Brom, it looked like Arsene Wenger might have to do some more juggling of his squad and experiment with yet another different Arsenal back four, as both of our left backs Kieran Gibbs and Nacho Monreal picked up knocks.
And the manager revealed in his press conference today, reported by Arsenal.com, that there was some concern about the fitness of our in form England international Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as well, while he was not sure how well Laurent Koscielny’s problematic ankle tendons would respond to his first game back.
They were all due to have tests this morning before the Gunners trained and it looks like, from the pictures on Arsenal.com, apart from Kieran Gibbs, they have all come through those tests and should be fine to face Southampton tomorrow evening.
Monreal, Koscielny, the Ox and Yaya Sanogo, whose supposed hamstring strain turned out to be cramp, all trained with the rest of their fit Arsenal team mates and that is a real boost for Wenger and our hopes of keeping up the recent run of performances and results.
I still think we might lose a bit of attacking threat from having Monreal instead of Gibbs on the left, but our defence at least should be nice and solid. So if the Gunners can continue to create chances as we have been doing and hopefully sharpen up on the taking of them, I think that all three points will be staying in north London.