It does appear to be good news about the knee injury picked up by Francis Coquelin in the Arsenal game at Chelsea, with the early rumours suggesting that the midfielder could be out for a month proving to be wrong. But even though Coquelin should be back in action very soon, he will not be available for the Capital One cup game against Tottenham tomorrow.
I doubt he would have played anyway, because Arsene Wenger does tend to rotate for these cup games and Coquelin has been almost an ever present in the first team this season. Arsenal do have options for the central midfield role in the shape of the club captain Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini, but which one should start at White Hart Lane?
Normally the automatic choice would be the Spaniard and it even looked as though Flamini might be leaving the club this summer, but after Arteta´s awful game in Zagreb last week, when he made no tackles or won any duels at all, the boss might be reluctant to play him in the north London derby.
At least with Flamini you are going to have a player that wants to get his foot in and make it difficult for an opponent and that could be important for us tomorrow. We certainly do not want another limp performance like the Champions League game, so is Flamini the man to take the place of Coquelin?
With Cazorla suspended, however, the other player in the centre for Arsenal, maybe Ramsey, might offer a bit more help defensively and that might mean we could use Arteta without putting too much pressure on his aging legs. What would you do Gooners?