Arsene Wenger has given another Arsenal injury update ahead of this afternoon’s visit to Old Trafford, and it seems that Aaron Ramsey has shrugged off his knock sustained last week and is fit again to face Man United.
The Welshman was the only possibly absentee from the Gunners starting XI that has taken the field in the last six matches as Wenger has tried to keep our successful run going, and Le Prof has announced that there are no other injured players returning to the squad this week. Arsene said, “We have a squad available that was available recently. Nobody is back. Welbeck is short and I don’t think I’ve forgotten anybody. It’s a similar squad.
He [Welbeck] is short a fraction but is not far away. I would love to have him available but we may have to do it without him.”
When asked about Ramsey, Le Prof replied simply: “I think he will be alright.”
“Mathieu Debuchy has a hamstring problem, he was out training for the first time yesterday. He should be available, maybe, if it all goes well, for the cup final.
“Oxlade-Chamberlain will not play next week and after that there’s only one week to go for the cup final. I think he will be short but you never know. If he can be available for West Brom, maybe that’s the earliest he could be. It’s difficult to predict today.”
Arsenal may have lost the three points last week, but Wenger was pleased with the overall performance against a team that parked the bus. “We played against a team with a 4-6 formation, didn’t play and you’re always frustrated when they manage to get away with a win,” he said after the game.
“On the other hand, we showed a lot of quality but were not very good in our finishing and guilty of giving away a mistake. At the moment we cannot afford that. When you are a defender you cannot give a goal away the way we did with five minutes to go. It’s impossible.
“It is [disappointing] but we should get encouragement. If we have done it for 10 games, we can do it again. We haven’t lost our quality here, so let’s restart on Sunday.
“Of course it makes that game important because the way you respond to a defeat always gives you a big [indication that] the team is strong mentally and that is what is expected of us on Sunday.”
So from that statement it would appear that he is going to give the same team a chance to atone for their sins. We know Man United will not play defensively as nothing less than a win will give them a chance of leapfrogging us into Third Place. We have only lost one game in our last eleven fixtures, so there is no reason we can’t recover from this little blip….
Onwards and Upwards!