Arsenal are still suffering greatly in the midfield department ahead of our clash with Brentford on Sunday, with Thomas Partey and Mo Elneny out of action, not to mention Emile Smith-Rowe.
Our other midfield backup Oleks Zinchenko, who has already missed a couple of weeks through injury, was our big hope to partner Granit Xhaka in place of Lokonga on Sunday, but it has now been revealed that the Ukranian has suffered another injury in training so won’t be availablr to face the Bees and won’t be joining up with his national team during the coming break.
The Ukrainian FA have just released a statement which read: “The Arsenal player suffered a calf muscle injury during training at the club, which will require about two weeks for treatment and recovery. Oleksandr immediately personally informed the head coach of the Ukrainian national team, Oleksandr Petrakov, of the unfortunate news by calling him. We wish Sashka a speedy recovery.”
So, it looks like we will be relying on Lokonga to partner Xhaka against Brentford, as they are our only two midfielders available, but it also means that Kieran Tierney, who has only played the full 90 minutes in one game this season, must continue at left back.
Let us hope that we have most of our players return to fitness after the international break, as we will be playing two games every week up until the World Cup.
We certainly hope Thomas Partey will be available for a run of games for a change…
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Am I mistaken in believing that Partey was back in full training and available for selection?
Guess Zinchenko never played more than 5 games in a row ever for city cause his injuries wants to make him look like an Ukrainian Partey
Makes sense that we are linked with cut price deal for Grimaldo. He tore his ACL in 2016 but ever since that, he’s played almost 6 full seasons at Benfica,and that’s +50 games a season.
So far Zinchenkos got 2 injuries in 2 months and Tierney is half the season injured so I would welcome Grimaldo.
+40 games a season*
I am so worried something is not done correctly in training, why getting injured when doing light training for the coming game
My word . Arsenal injury records are so funny.
Players are getting injured in training as well
WTF is happening at arsenal training, is there an issue with conditioning, fitness, flexibility programs? These are professional athletes whom if trained correctly should be available
A keep saying Arsenal need to have a big squad every season as our injury records is always one of the highest in the league.
Even if we were successful in getting Douglass Luiz, we should still stride to get a top midfielder.
We need another striker as well.
I’ve often wondered what it is about Arsenal that causes so many injuries. Is the training flawed – it’s unlikely to be anything as obvious as a lack of warm-up, but it seems as if there’s something different?
It may be a wrong impression becasue I don’t really follow the blow by blow events in other clubs, but it just seems to me that for many years we’ve had a lot more injuries than other clubs and many of them seem to happen in training?
I think it’s more that most of us don’t pay much mind to other teams’ physio tables. Everytime I think “crikey we get so many more injuries then other teams” and look at an injury league table, we invariably fall somewhere in the middle of the pack. I agree though, it doesn’t feel like that.
By the way, interesting quote from the Ukrainian FA.
It was my understanding that in Ukraine the diminutive form of Oleksandr is usually (slightly surprisingly) “Sasha” or “Sashka” – not normally “Oleks” or similar, as we might have expected in Britain.
The prospect of a central midfield partnership of Xhaka and Zinchenko does not appeal to me at all.Totally unbalanced, particularly when you add to the mix yet another left footer in Odegaard.Lokonga, who was not culpable for any of the goals conceded against Man Utd in my opinion, seems to be the subject of unjustifiable criticism from Arsenal fans, and I have to say I am surprised that Pat seems to have joined the band wagon.Sambi will develop into a very fine central midfielder.All he and some others in our squad need is regular game time to improve their fitness and self confidence.
In other sports an injury generally happens due to a weakness in a muscle/tendon/ligament, which needs customised training for the injured party ( no pun intended!) that strengthens t joe weakness so it does not reoccur.
I am seriously starting to question arsenals training regime now though, even with a deeper squad we cannot keep absorbing these volumes of injuries
I tend to agree with most of u and also was it part of the training programmes that may not be suitable.
Partey for example b4 he came to England he doesnt have much injury problems at all if m not wrong.
He is really 1 key component that Arsenal can rasie iur chances of challenging n win a trophy with him around.
But hes getting injured most of the times. To me hes more like a rotational player cant use him all the time.
For sure its a bad news for the Gunners