David Ornstein has revealed how a positive test for Coronavirus before the Manchester City match hampered three players preparation for the restart.
The Gunners have lost both of their opening matches, and are enduring a torrid time on and off the pitch currently.
Ornstein told The Athletic a positive result for a current unnamed player in the run-up to the Manchester City match-up last week forced three of our first-team squad into quarantine, and none of the trio were allowed to train for three days until the next round of testing, despite the club believing the test was a false-positive.
Safety has to be the primary objective, and even after two unofficial tests came back as negative the player was still not allowed back into training, and is believed to have sat out the tie.
This obstacle will no doubt have hampered the clubs preparation for the big clash at the Etihad, and things went from bad to worse on the pitch as we lost both Granit Xhaka and Pablo Mari to injury inside the opening 25 minutes, before losing David Luiz to a red card and going onto a disastrous 3-0 defeat at the hands of City.
We’ve since lost Bernd Leno for the rest of the season at least, and possibly for up to six months due to another injury, while Matteo Guendouzi looks likely to miss the next three matches for violent conduct, having throttled Neal Maupay after the weekend’s defeat.
Arsenal’s first-half of the season was certainly a period we would love to forget, but the resumption looks like it could well top our struggles from earlier in the campaign.
Will Arsenal ever get luck on their side? Should there be a facility to officially check for false positives given the impact on match preparations?
Patrick
Luck on our side? You’ve gotta be kidding!
It’s one thing after another….
This information might just show why the team selection against ManC was what it was.
Who knows?
Could this explain why Martinelli hasn’t played??
Hmmmm, u right there, seems the media and everyone is covering that ommission, no one seems to ask the manager about him. Possibly there is an insider story. Hopefully will be sorted soon. Am holding my breath, expecting miracle from our board and ‘top management ‘ just 3 established players in mf and defence and we are ready
All part of playing football while covid 19 is about. It will happen.