Why Debuchy injury might NOT be bad news for Arsenal

Injuries and Arsenal are two words that have gone together way too often in the last few years and so are we really surprised to hear that our new right back, Mathieu Debuchy, might be out of action for as much as two months after picking up an ankle problem in the 2-2 draw with Man City yesterday?

Of course it is bad news for Arsenal, especially as the defensive side of the squad is the one that we have got the least cover for. But in a way this could turn out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Why? Because it will give the young Spanish defender Hector Bellerin a chance to show what he can do in the first team.

And if the product of the famous La Masia academy from Barcelona can start to produce the kind of electric performance he came up with in pre-season at the Emirates cup, then we could have a real star of t6he future on our hands.

The 19-year old is blessed with searing pace to go with his technical ability and considering that Debuchy is 29-years old, the Gunners need him to start progressing from the underage squad. Calum Chambers was thought of as a right back but it looks like Arsene Wenger is grooming the former Saint for a centre back role.

Bellerin has a lot to learn but how is he going to do that if he never plays? What do you guys think?

Tags Bellerin Chambers Wenger

72 Comments

    1. bellerin is good player.
      mert is too slow he cant play against big team.in last match he did not single tackle player easily passed him. i think chamber should be start against big team.
      gibbs come back soon.
      and pls play ozil in cam position.
      diaby should start the game.

      1. The whole defence was bad,Mert shouldn’t be made a scapegoat,on the 1st goal full backs were high up the pitch nowhere to be found,Koscielny didn’t block the space to stop Navas from putting in the cross and Flamini lost sight of Aguero whom he should have marked!

        1. I agree. Full backs that go forward that often make it a nightmare for CDs. It is not really going to get easier unless the full backs are more intelligent in their movement. Yes they should go forward but there are examples (not just yesterday) where only the CDs have had to deal with counter attacks. Doesn’t make sense to me because we can’t be attacking from both left and right so not sure why both end up high up the pitch.

        2. Agree – Merts tends to be the go-to man on here if there is a defensive error. Truth of the matter Kos was more “adjacent” to both goals than Merts. Thought MF could have done much better for the first goal, he got bundled off the ball in the centre circle, the ball flew wide right and he pulled up with his arm in the air assuming the ball was going out. Meanwhile Aguero just kept going.

  1. Kagawa is a good player but I have never actually rated him that highly, he shouldn’t be too hard to stop. In my opinion our weak links in our team are Mertesaker, Flamini, Arteta and occasionally Szszesny. We need a new centre back and DM certainly next summer. I do really like Szszesny, it’s just he gets too over confident of his number 1 spot and complacent. He’s a good keeper and has his best years ahead of him which is why he won the Golden Glove last season of course, I’m just glad we brought in Ospina to push him for the number 1 spot. We also need to stop pushing our full backs up so high up the pitch, that’s why we got thrashed away to the big teams last season, notice how most of their goals were on the counter? Leaving huge amounts of space for their wingers to run into and score against us because our full backs were so far up the pitch…

    1. Why do you people love love repeating yourselves?just comment on the article instead of derailling it with the same comment you issued on the kagawa dotmund article.

    2. Mertesacker being made a scapegoat again yet players like Ozil,Jack etc when they play poorly are always spared criticism

      1. Dee@ease – I have generally given up on here trying to respond to some of the noisier folk partly because I know it is pointless but also because I often don’t know where to start when presented with so many sweeping generalisations and half-baked opinions masquerading as “truths”. Occasionally I come across something simple to respond to; how in god’s name can you say Ozil gets spared criticism on here when he plays poorly????!!

  2. i think we should have buy a defender.. every single arsenal fan knew this, except wenger. because from now on chambers per and laurent have to play every single game, so they will be injured too. wake up we have no cover for cb and rb! (i wont count bellerin, because he may be good but he is inexperienced. go out to CL, and PL with NO DEFENSIVE COVER and a 19 yo kid. Is this serious???? 1 more injury in defence (that will come for sure) and we can see Hayden vs diego costa. Why we didnt sign a defender? why we havnt bought at least a free agent?? every arsenal fan would love to see Yepes for exapmle, he is a free agent. Its ridicolus that Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil have to play in a team that has 6 defenders.. its sad very sad. Cant say anything about that. Wenger eat what you cooked

    1. Personally I’d rather see Hayden than Yepes. Hayden has trained with the team and knows the players well, he’s young, quite big so can be useful at set pieces, he has decent movement and he’s english, he knows how we play over here.. Yepes is old and even slower than Mertesacker, doesn’t know the premier league (remember how awful Demichelis was for months before he settled in?) and probably can’t speak english to communicate with the rest of the team..

      What’s wrong with Hayden? He’s just as old as Chambers. Yes he’s inexperienced, but he’ll never be experienced if we’re too scared to play him… We’re not talking first or even third choice, we’re talking fourth choice centre back. He should get three or four games at most… I’d have preferred we signed a good holding midfielder that can fill the gap at centre back if needed, but just because we haven’t signed one doesn’t mean we should sign whoever happens to be free.

      1. Yo answered your own question he is in experienced .

        Yepes is a quality leader he may be slow but no were as slow as per.

        As for right back we should let coqulan n bellerin play in debuchy absence. What his injury prove is that jenkinson should have stayed.

    1. Di Maria did NOT cost £42 million.
      WE bought Alexis Sanchez for almost half of what he cost, and, is younger.
      Utd have a s… defence, yet, LVG has hardly improved it, even though he has spent close to £160 million.
      Chelsea and Cty have spent an absolute fortune over 5/10 years to get the depth of squad, and pay ridiculous wages to keep them happy, even when benched.
      Spurs spent a fortune to finish 6th last Season.
      Pool spent a fortune, on top of the Suarez money, to lose at Home to Villa this week.
      Chelsea, Cty, Utd and Everton have a ageing team, whereas, we have a very young squad, with ready made replacements for the few players coming towards the end of their Arsenal careers.
      The injury to MD is NOT what we needed, but, as said, we have Chambers and Hector who will be given the opportunity to prove they can make the step up, which I believe they can.
      Monreal did very well at CB when Kos was injured.
      I, DO NOT believe in the Chelsea, Cty system of just paying fortunes for 27/32 year old players, who will then need to be replaced in a few years, whereas the talented youth are sold off.
      IF, Wenger believes we NEED to buy, because we have nobody ready to take over, then I believe he will, hopefully, the likes of Chambers, with a whole career ahead of him, and not one with a few years left.

      1. While I admire your optimism your analysis comes out of context and isn’t entirely correct.

        Saying we have replacements and a young team is all good and well if all the other clubs embraced the same system we did of youth development, which they don’t. Man City has never been a team to develop youth players and as such they will simply buy suitable replacements when the need arises. Furthermore their tolerance of failure is much lower than ours and as a result they would sell players that are still excellent players and as such it won’t be much of a problem for them breaking even or close to. They sold tevez who is banging gpals in for juve, they sold sturridge who is excellent for liverpool, they sent out Negredo who we would have killed to have in our team. Not sure if anyone realizes but FFp won’t be much of a hindrance to the big clubs as people think, its more to prevent OTHER clubs from doing the same thing, its why Roman Abramovich was such an ardent supporter of it.

        Secondly where did you get the idea that Chelsea has an aging squad from? They have agruably the best young team in the league and are set for at least another years. They sold most of their aging players and have many of their stars either at 25 or below. They sold lampard, essien, looking to maybe sell check, got rid of torres who was still just 29, sold ashley cole and have ample replacements coming up for terry who is still one of the best CBs in the league.
        Courtois – 22 (already one of the best keepers in the world, top 5 easily
        Hazard – 23
        Oscar – 23
        Salah – 23
        Schurrle – 23
        Costa – 25
        Azpilcueta – 25
        Matic – 26
        Fabregas – 27
        Ramires – 27
        Willian – 26
        Remy – 27

        We have a young team with players slightly younger than there’s but who still have way more to do to catch up in terms of talent. In addition City or Chelsea typically don’t spend a ton of money on 27 year olds. It is usually talented young players they bring in that are already stars that they then sign up to long term contracts, giving them sufficient time to either make or break it and then signing them up to other long term contracts OR selling them while they are still relatively young so that they can still make a substantial amount on sales. Mata and Luiz are prime examples of that.

        Lastly Chelsea have one of the best youth development squads in the league, it is exactly how they avoid the FFP because they make so much player sales off young players not to mention there is a clause that money spent on youth development is exempt from analysis in the FFP

        1. They also have the best array of young talent on loan
          Hazard
          Pazon.L
          Omouro
          Kalas

          Are all highly rated youngsters plus many more

        2. Loving the spin, put their younger players first, the older players last and leave all the old gits out completely, ever considered politics?

      2. There is a lot of money in Football, we have to accept that. Nobody is going to hand out medals to teams that come in fourth without spending as much as the teams that are above them. The fact that we dont have the money Chelsea, City or Manu has is not anyone’s problem but our own. If we dont buy quality, we cant beat quality. Snachez is quality, Ozil played in the right position is quality. Flamini that came in for free is not quality, Giroud at 12 million to lead the line of a Championship chasing team.

  3. We couldn’t get Cesc back because of Ozil
    So Cesc goes to Chelsea and is bagging assists
    Meanwhile, Ozil continues to divide opinions in every game he plays…
    Did we really need to buy Ozil? Did we??? 🙁

    1. We didn,t need to buy him, just as we didn,t need to buy Cesc.
      Ozil however IS thought as to be the best No10 in the World, and, has topped the assist stats for many years, and, is 25.
      Cesc could not get a regular start at Barcca, the crowd turned against him at times, and, is 27/28.
      Yes, Cesc has got a few assists for Chelsea, which, Mezut also got for us when he joined. However, as impressive as Chelsea have been so far, they have not REALLY played any of the top teams. Lets see how Cesc and Costa go in the UCL and against Cty at the Ethiad next week.
      IF, Chelsea shine in those games and, Cesc sets up assists for Costa etc, then, we can readdress the argument for and against.
      What I will say is, once we had bought Ozil, no way could we then buy Cesc.
      I know he has NOT yet proved to be the stellar signing we had hoped, but, some players take longer to adapt to the EPL, and, may need to work on some physical weaknesses, that take time, but, I have NO doubts he WILL be a future great of our Club.
      Look at Rambo and Jack, and how long they needed to get their best form back after injury. Mezut needs a little more time.

      1. Agree with most of your arguments but u don’t spend 42 million on players who take 2 or more seasons to adapt. Agree on your point though that once we have ozil, there is no place for Cesc but trying to suggest Cesc is an inferior player would mean u dont understand football at all!

    2. We didn’t get cesc back because wenger has confidence in wilshire coming good

      He was outstanding vs city outshining everyone on the pitch defensively and offensively he was very good

  4. Guys can we please stop crucifying Ozil. Okay he had a bad game and has been looking lacklustre but please don’t imply the guy is rubbish cos he has crazy talent and came to Arsenal at our low point to prove himself. I think the fact that we know how good can be is making it more frustrating for us fans watching him. Someone needs to explain to him that hardwork on the pitch is the only way to overcome bad form. Just ask Monreal, Ramsey and Wilshere.

    1. I believe that there is some other problem with Özil other than EPL etc. He did not play well for Germany either, and the German fans were getting on his back. Özil does have pace, but why he is playing the way he is ATM is something only he and possibly AW know, it would seem like something mental.

    2. Ozil didn’t have influnce on the game in the first half he didn’t see the ball much he did get back and keep a good shape but he hardly intercept or influenced offensively.the highlight of his first half was the chance he created for welbeck

      1st half rating 6.6

      Second half he started to roam more he had an excellent change of direction in one move and he was always involved in the link up play in final thirds. A much better half for him.

      Overal rating 7.2

  5. Wenger is naive & his refusal to get a defender is telling on the team bellerin is too young to go against Chelsea, man city, Liverpool for Christ sake why is he dilly dally on every deal. I heard he said he trust arteta, flamini for this season and he didn’t get carvalho and I’m sure they forced him to get welbeck why is Wenger killing our club. why don’t hr retain sagna and let him go for free when the money paid for debulchy will have been offset by his £12 million, for sag a is more solid defensively our defence is a child’s play and I don’t know why we sold vermalean his transfer inaccuracies is telling on arsenal hope we overcome this.COYG

  6. Wenger is naive & his refusal to get a defender is telling on the team bellerin is too young to go against Chelsea, man city, Liverpool for Christ sake why is he dilly dallying on every deal. I heard he said he trust arteta, flamini for this season and he didn’t get carvalho and I’m sure they forced him to get welbeck why is Wenger killing our club. why don’t hr retain sagna and let him go for free when the money paid for debulchy will have been offset by his £12 million fee for sagna is more solid defensively our defence is a child’s play and I don’t know why we sold vermalean his transfer inaccuracies is telling on arsenal hope we overcome this.COYG

    1. And we all have been concerned bc we haven’t seen much of Bellerin in the first team. But apparently Wenger rated him enough to be our cover. So, let’s see what the kid can prove. As the comments mention above, he’s fast. As in, beat both Henry and Walcott’s Arsenal speed records. That’s already a positive.

    2. Sagna and Verm WANTED to go.
      One can NOT get in the Cty team, the other, in the Barcca team, which, we could have told them.
      So, one has gone from regular starter to non starter, and the other from one bench, to another.
      Debauchy is 29, and was only ever a stop gap buy. Chambers, Bellerin and Jenkinson are our future.
      Lots of negativity again this week.
      I believe, had we NOT lost MD on Saturday, at such a crucial point, we WOULD have won.
      The posts, and comments on here would then have been TOTALLY different, and most would be tipping us for the EPL title, and, a chance of the UCL too.

      1. On the other hand, if Dzeko had buried that chance at the death most posters would be tipping us for relegation. We’re a fickle lot us Arsenal fans.

      2. Yeah, I won’t bother coming on here when we actually lose!! Whatever the specifics of the match or the nature of the defeat it will be Merts and Ozil’s fault – you heard it here first.

  7. The Aguero goal yesterday showed one of our BIG weaknesses, attacking fullbacks. It’s great when it works but without a DM it leaves us completely open to counter attacks. I think we need to let one attack and one sit. That means we have enough to defend counter attacks.
    On a positive note, I can’t wait for Walcott to come back. It’ll sort is out completely. Alexis will play on the other wing and it’ll mean that Özil will be back in the middle. I reckon this would be the line up:
    Szczezny
    Debuchy/Bellerin Mert Kos Gibbs/Monreal
    Flamini( until new DM)
    Walcott Jack/Rambo Özil Alexis
    Welbeck

    1. Get used to it. We always play with attacking fullbacks. That was a very lucky spin otherwise ball would go out. Sanchez on left meant Monreal had actually help on the wing. Watching the last two seasons I realized that Wenger (and our defense) take this gamble and learn not to panic. This is our weakness which has to be made redundant by a pacy and effective forward. DM would be of no use for us unless he is a fast DM.

    2. I can see that all of a sudden Walcott is the go to man now that he is injured.. But wait till he is back and has a few bad games, everyone will be on his back as always calling him all sorts..

      “Walcott is an average player who is all pace and nothing else.. He has no footballing brain, he should be benched, he should be sold and replaced with Reus” etc…

      Just wait till he is back..

      1. Playing with attacking fullbacks is fine. In the modern game it’s a necessity. However, we have to be smart and not push both up past the wingers and leave ourselves wide open. Any decent DM who can play a full 90 week in week out would work. They don’t have to be pacy, they just have to have impeccable positioning.
        As for Walcott, he isn’t the best we could have. But when he’s fit, Wenger plays him. That means that to play Alexis and Welbeck as well, he’ll have to take Özil off the wing, where he obviously doesn’t work, and put him back into the middle. However Walcott plays it helps the team to have him back on the pitch both tactically and with assists and goals.

      2. Not everyone Goonster – there are people on here who can resist the personal abuse of players. And you aren’t one of them btw.

  8. Debuchery’s injury is not good news, he’s been playing great. But in Flamini, Chambers and Bellerin we’ve got cover. Excited especially to see what Bellerin can do in the big show.

  9. Really gutted that arsenal didn’t buy cdm and cb. The success of next matches in 2 months (12 games) will be decided by the fitness of defense team. If there is someone who is injured again, what a disaster ….. can we take back jenkinson? i know he was suck, but arsenal really desperately need him now ….

    1. TBH Bellerin is probably not far off Jenkins on so probably best to leave Jenkins on on loan so that he can play some more.

        1. ah yes young man …the wise men of the ‘clan’ certainly knew their stuff.
          shouts out to calum 36 chambers

  10. our defense just switches off at any given moment and give up very weak goals. They can’t defend crosses or set plays. Surely this must be addressed now, in january we must buy 1 or 2 CB that are tall/agile/athletic.

  11. Mert must not go up the park to semi attack – he has the pace of an overage snail and never gets back in time – leave him on the edge of the 18 yard box – no further – he is for ever needing Kos to bail him out – many of our opposing players leave him for dead. He has excellent anticipation – this is his strength …interceptions, but if they come at him ball at feet he is dead!

  12. Arsene Wenger:

    “I’m happy with the signings but we still need a physical presence with prodigious ability like Vieira or Petit.”

  13. This is going to be our worse season for years. Come jan sales AW won’t buy any new player. If we had a 2 footed DM we would sit top of the EPL

  14. Wow. People are actually saying we shoud sell Özil? I bet they’re the same people that used to boo Ramsey but now have his name on the back of his shirt. Stop being so fickle. Özil is one of the most talented players we have, he’s in poor form and is being played out of position. He should be benched until he steps up, sold? No way..

  15. So we are down from 6 to 5 defenders and it is not “a bad news”… !!

    At the end I wonder why some fans always argue and complain about Wenger transfer “tactics”…!!

    We really deserve the guy in charge right now, since the ambition at the club and from the fans seems to be trickily and outrageously limited…

    We are fine…

  16. Re’ Per Mertesacker replace with Virgil Van Dyck please, or someone of similar mould.
    Can you imagine Ko’s mobility, speed etc alongside a player of Kompanies physical stature, and I don’t just mean tall!
    A DM warrior and a new CB and we are right on track 🙂
    Kondogbia and Van Dyck please.
    And on Ozil, the guy drives me mad…….but he has so much talent that needs to be harnessed.
    I think a player of this skill and stature needs regular one to ones with Wenger. We shouldn’t need to pander to one player but he clearly needs some direction.
    This direction could be an arm round him and some bigging up, some clear objectives to tell him exactly what Wenger expects from him or maybe even a polite kick up the ar*e.
    If having done this and he still doesn’t seem right then Arsene needs to get him off the pitch, he’s negativity is not healthy for the other players. I used to think Ozil’s body lanuguage was down to the frustration of playing with Giroud up front, cant use that one at the moment.
    I want to see Ozil smiling, enjoying his football again. When this happens he will naturally start running games again. Come on Arsene put your ‘people skills’ to work!

    1. Therein lies the problem Ronny331; Ozil has always looked and acted exactly the same – he has never changed. Have you ever seen anyone so obviously underwhelmed and awkward in winning a world cup? His demeanour is his biggest problem imo, I see people creating their own theories now that he is “sulking” on the wing. Try looking for a video clip of an ebullient, raucous let-it-all out Ozil! It appears difficult for many to overcome this obstacle – if he just grimaced, hollered or let out a few vein-bursting expletives each game he would probably win over a good proportion of his detractors. His idea of “bleeding red and white” appears to be his touching but awkward tweets to the fans. He is an enigma though because if you disregard his demeanour then the stats will tell you that in a very average first season after arriving and joining the squad late he significantly outperformed all the regular favourites bar AR15 in terms of creativity and possession. We have landed one of the quietest, most efficient (in terms of energy in – product out) players in the history of the game – quite what we do with him and how it will all pan out I’m not sure but I will be very sad if it ends badly.

  17. On topic, what a ridiculous title for an article!
    I look forward to seeing Belerin get a chance but how can an experienced player who has adapted to our team well, getting injured be good news?!

  18. @teddrake & muffdiver.
    At least he realises this, but doesn’t this make it even more daft that he didn’t go all out to make it happen?

    I hope we are already targeting and working on a January deal for the Viera type player AW mentions.

  19. Why the thumb down for him.. it’s the truth and we all know it. All we needed at the last hour of the transfer was a defender , be it in the middle or at the back and a striker. Because of that wrong decision from Wenger for not getting a defender,we are about to pay dearly for it. May God help us pull through.

  20. I think chambers. Bellerin, flamini and coqurlin can cover right back so I am not worried

    I am concern with ozil, play him in the middle

    Let him get confidence there

  21. Jenks had his chance when Sagna was injured. Lets see how Bellerin goes if he is allowed to replace DB.

    Gibbs got given chance when he was young and he is now our regular LB. We need the best from our academy to have chances in first team.

    The best we have are: Bellerin, Hayden, Akpom and Crowley. Zelalem is already part of our first team and needs some time too.

    What about our almost reject and loaned out Afobe, he scored already 6 for MK Dons.

    The future is bright, the future is Arsenal…..

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