Arsenal fans were given one more reason today by Arsene Wenger to want the Gunners to beat Hull City in the FA cup replay tomorrow night. This season may not have been our worst ever on the injury front but it has still been pretty bad and once again the boss had some bad news to deliver in his press conference today, which you can see in full on Arsenal.com.
The update on the French international defender Laurent Koscielny suggests that Arsenal will have our best centre back available again fairly soon, but not soon enough for the game tomorrow or the one at the weekend. And if we do not get past Hull then it will be a Premier League clash with West Brom on Saturday.
Wenger said, “Laurent will be short for Hull. he has a chance to be available for the weekend, but I think even for then he will be short.”
With the West Brom strike partnership of Berahino and Rondon looking sharp and in form at the minute it would be nice to have our strongest defence in action. You might be wondering, then, why I think that Arsenal should start with Calum Chambers instead of Per Mertesacker in Hull and it was something that the German defender said in his post match comments, reported by Metro.
He said, “It was a high tempo. The first 15 minutes were absolutely amazing. I have never played in such a demanding game physically.”
So we have a potentially jaded defender, both mentally and physically, in what is a key game in the season for Arsenal. But there is also the question of Hector Bellerin and whether he could do with a rest as well. But the Spaniard is younger and fitter and also in better form than the German.
Our BFG was also at fault in the build up to the Kane goal in the derby and with pace not being his strong point in the first place I think it would be risky to start with a tired Mertesacker in what is likely to be a high energy encounter against Hull. Do you agree?