It was great to see Arsenal take all three points from the game against West Brom ths afternoon, but can you believe that we may have also lost three more players to injury? Nacho Monreal came off very early on, and his replacement Kieran Gibbs sustained an ankle problem himself.
Wenger said on Arsenal.com after the match: “Gibbs struggled a little bit with an ankle problem and Monreal with a knee problem. Oxlade-Chamberlain also had a knee problem.”
And when asked if they could be serious, he replied: “I don’t know. We have to see how they recover on Monday. We have Oxlade-Chamberlain, Monreal and Gibbs who have knocks but I don’t know how bad it is.”
We certainly don’t need any more players on the treatment table, and especially Gibbs and Monreal, which would leave another gap in the defence. The good news is that Laurent Koscielny has come back to give the back line more steel, and Wenger is happy that we didn’t concede yet again. Wenger remarked: “We had a clean sheet against Dortmund and we had one today. We had three very good games in the week, one against Manchester United, one against Dortmund and one today. Unfortunately against Manchester United we didn’t win but our performance was there. Defensively we were maybe a bit more stable today but I think against Dortmund we had a very good defensive performance.”
It may not have been the most polished performance, but it was a great day to win three points with Chelsea only managing a draw and Southampton facing Man City tomorrow. A couple of points closer to the top!