Good morning to you and welcome to Friday.
Those of you hoping for good news ahead of tomorrow’s game against Newcastle, look away now. Actually, don’t, but the news thus far is not encouraging. The manager gave some updates yesterday on some of the players we might need, what with having to field this thing called a “Back Four” and it’s not hugely positive.
Laurent Koscielny – “Looks like he will not be quite ready” while Nacho Monreal is “Not back”. Calum Chambers is, of course, suspended for not thrusting his bony Skeletor elbow into people’s faces last weekend, while there’s news on Arteta – “not ready” and Theo Walcott – “out”. That’s there’s also a doubt over Aaron Ramsey (hamstring) means the manager is going to have some job on his hands picking a team for tomorrow.
I’ll come back to the defence in a second, but after a sensational 45 minutes in midweek, the temptation to play Ramsey must be huge, but if there’s any genuine risk over him doing himself more damage then we have to play the sensible game with so many fixtures in the next few weeks. Better to be without him for tomorrow than to play him and lose him for a few weeks – especially when we’re without Arteta and Wilshere too. That’s the balancing act for Wenger though. The need to get a result tomorrow is obvious, especially after last weekend, so does he think really short-term, take the risk (if there is one) and hope for the best?
Midfield options are pretty short, but we could certainly move Oxlade-Chamberlain in there and use one of Campbell or Podolski (or even Welbeck) in one of the wide forward positions. The last thing we need is to be without an apparently resurgent Ramsey over the festive period and if there’s any strain hopefully it’ll have healed before next Sunday’s trip to Anfield. He’s going to be assessed again today, so depending on when the press conference takes place (pre or post training) we should have an idea later on as to how it’s all going to go down.
As for what happens at the back we do have four defenders, I think. I’m making the assumption that Kieran Gibbs is available after being rested in midweek and not being included on the casualty list in the manager’s update. We could have Bellerin at right back, move Debuchy to centre-half, with Per and Gibbs doing the rest. The only other option is to play a youngster like Semi Ajayi with Per (Hayden is still recovering from injury as far as I know), but quite how the manager gauges his readiness is anybody’s guess.
Either way, it’s not an ideal situation by any means and you probably don’t have to do too much research to align our worst performances and results with our most makeshift defensive line-ups. When you consider the team we’re facing beat Chelsea last weekend they’ll be coming into this game on something of a high. And let’s not forget Steven Taylor got a red card in that game too so that obviously strengthens them immeasurably.
Anyway, we’ll get more from the manager at his press conference later on and hopefully the news is slightly better today. Other than that there’s not a lot happening other than a proliferation of vague transfer stories as the window is close to opening again. It’s almost as if the fiction writers have been paying attention to what Arsene Wenger has done in the past. Our need for defensive reinforcement is blindingly obvious to everyone, so we’ve been linked with all manner of diminutive attackers. It’s not as if he doesn’t have form for that, but I do think this time he’s got to spend at the back. Not even an Arshavin can save us this time.
Right then, let’s move on to this week’s Arsecast in which we fill your ears with Arse. Of a fashion. After an eventful and quite strange week I chat to Philippe Auclair about Arsene Wenger, the Stoke fall-out, what it all means for him and what he needs to do in the short-term and in January to ease the pressure. As well as that there’s something from the Angriest Man on Twitter (kinda), and there are more goodies to be won from our friends at Savile Rogue along with all the usual waffle.
Don’t forget, you can get a 10% discount at check-out from Savile-Rogue (check out their Arsenal stuff here), by using the code ARSEBLOG14.
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To download this week’s Arsecast directly click here – 36mb MP3. The Arsecast is also available on our SoundCloud channel, as well as via the SoundCloud app for iPhone and Android. You can now also find it on the Stitcher podcasting app for iOS and Android. Or, you can listen without leaving this page by using the player below.
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We’ll have all the news from the press conference over on Arseblog News as the day goes on, and if you’re still humming and hawing over buying a book for Christmas, get your skates on because there aren’t too many posty days left.
Till tomorrow.
