Hello everyone, welcome to Friday. I have to say I feel like Fridays have been diluted in recent times, what with this 24/7 world we all live in now, but give me the choice right now between Friday and Monday, I’m all over the one day of the week Robert Smith enjoyed.
The speculation over who might play on the right-hand side of midfield for tomorrow’s game against Swansea reached fever pitch. People were a-shufflin’ here, a-fiddlin’ there, with all kinds of permutations.
“I think we should follow the lead of esteemed Icelandic under-19 coach Hugleikur P Dagsson and deploy a deep-lying pivot as a free-roaming Trequartista-Enganche, thus allowing Mathieu Flamini to channel both his inner Pirlo and his inner Fabio Oranginho, Gremio B Reserves most famous youth player ever until *that* knee injury in *that* tournament. Talk about football being robbed of its greatest ever talent. He scored more than Messi at U11s, you know.”
Then Arsenal Wenger basically said it would be Joel Campbell. After the defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday, the manager declared none of the young players who played as ready to play at that level – that level being Capital One Cup against a Championship side. So, when asked about his options for tomorrow, he said:
Joel Campbell and Alex Iwobi. Santi can play there as well but he has become very important centrally. The problem sometimes is that you can destroy two departments if you move one player out. We control the ball better with Santi in the middle.
Which makes sense. Minimise the disruption and actually play a guy who has some experience in that position. Campbell, even if he has failed to convince, has played full seasons of first team football at Lorient, Real Betis and Olympiacos, plus another loan spell in La Liga with Villarreal. He’s played 50 internationals for Costa Rica, played at a World Cup, and as such he’s the obvious man to fill the gap.
It might also be a case that a couple of games in a row might do him some good. I mean, we’re talking about a bloke who is, essentially, 7th choice for that position and somebody whose Arsenal future remains very much in the balance, but he’s never, ever had any kind of run in the team. On the one hand, there’s probably a good reason for that, but on the other we’ve seen how playing a bit more regularly can improve a player. Not to mention that tomorrow he’ll have better players around him so that might well have an impact.
</blind optimism>
The manager also confirmed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott would miss the next three games and hoped they’d be back after the Interlull. It’s definitely a blow, and after the recent improvements in our injury record, it’s all a bit familiar.
There’s no question a lot of work and investment has gone into trying to make things better. We know Shad Forsythe has been brought in, followed by a slew of new appointments to specifically target fitness, strength and conditioning, injury prevention and more. Maybe though, we’ve given these guys a Ford Escort and told them to race in a Grand Prix.
When you look at the players who are out injured right now, almost to a man they have a history of injury problems big and small. 6 months here, 3 months there. For some it’s a 3 week break to interrupt rhythm, form and confidence before they rediscover it … and have to sit out another 3 weeks with a repeat of a similar problem. I do wonder at this point if some of them aren’t fixable, and that these are issues we’re going to have to deal with as long as they’re at the club.
You stick a horn on a horse but that doesn’t make it a unicorn. Yeah. So, in that sense I feel a bit sorry for the medical staff. I can’t imagine there’s any lack of knowledge or expertise, and the fact was things had improved somewhat, but when you go into a period like this with 8 senior players missing you really have to wonder if the faults lie so deep within the individuals that we might never get on top of the situation without replacing with for more robust men altogether.
Anyway, it’ll keep the medical staff busy at least. No rest for the wicked etc etc. Time now for this week’s Arsecast, and in today’s show I react the dramatic midweek events on and off the pitch, including the growing threat to humanity that was revealed on Wednesday. I then chat with Tim Stillman about Joel Campbell, our injury problems, the Capital One Cup, the upcoming schedule, what’s going on at youth level and lots more. There’s some vintage news, a Halloween spook, and all the usual waffle.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download the Arsecast directly, use the link below the player, and if you are a regular listener via iTunes, if you would be so kind as to leave a review/rating that would be greatly appreciated.
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Right then, we’ll have all the news from the manager’s press conference over on Arseblog News throughout the day. Maybe somebody has made a miracle recovery!
The Gent will be here later, I’ll be back tomorrow with a full preview of the Swansea game. Until then, have a good one.
