I am hoping that Arsene Wenger has a press conference today so we can have some actual Arsenal news. By that I mean stuff that’s concrete and doesn’t lend itself to massive speculation. It feels like in certain sections of the Arsenal online world, people are tying themselves in absolute knots over stuff which really isn’t that important at all.
If you happily exist outside of this realm, my strong advice is to ensure you stay the other side of the curtain because it’s gone from being like a strange kind of party where everyone’s a bit tipsy and there are some eccentric guests, to a crazy scene of mayhem with people running around with chainsaws and bats having shoved PCP suppositories up their arses.
I know we live in weird times, but man they’re getting weirder. Anyway, we do have a game of football tomorrow, taking on Östersunds FK in the second leg of our first knock-out round of the Europa League at the Emirates. With a 3-0 lead from the first game, and with the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, it’s one which will give Arsene Wenger some thought when it comes to his team selection.
What he doesn’t want is to lose any of his key players for the final, but he might also need to find the balance between that and keeping them match sharp. There’s only three days between the two games though, so he doesn’t want fatigue to be an issue either. City played on Monday night, going out of the FA Cup to Wigan, and don’t play again until Sunday, so that’s not an issue for them, and given how strong they are we don’t need to hobble ourselves any further.
So, what kind of a team could we put out if we chose to rest as many of our ‘first team’ as possible? Something like:
Ospina : Chambers, Mertesacker, Holding : Maitland-Niles, Willock, Elneny, Kolasinac : Nelson, Mkhitaryan, Nketiah
That’s a back three I know, and chances are we’ll play a back four which could give us Chambers at right back and Maitland-Niles in midfield, with scope to include Iwobi or Welbeck further forward, or even someone else from academy level. Mkhitaryan is included because he’s cup-tied and can’t play at Wembley so we might as well use him.
You can have a bit of quality on the bench should you need it, but with some injury issues already we really can’t afford to lose anyone else. Alexandre Lacazette is out after his surgery but there’s no way of risking Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang anyway because he’s ineligible.
Meanwhile, Aaron Ramsey remains sidelined with a groin problem, and the Welshman will be a miss for City because our midfield options are what they are at the moment – and that’s not terribly convincing. Perhaps more than anywhere else on the pitch this is an area which requires the most planning and investment come the summer.
Ramsey is a player I really, really like. I know he drives some people mad but I think he’s got qualities that are hugely beneficial to the side, although they’re not often utilised as well because of the way we’re set up. However, his injury issues would definitely give you pause for thought despite his contract heading towards the final 12 months.
If it were me, I’d extend it but when you have Ramsey and Jack Wilshere, two players with a very chequered history when it comes to absences, some serious thought has to be given to their situations. I think with both you can probably give them new deals and if things don’t work out you shouldn’t have too much difficulty in moving them on for reasonable fees given the current transfer market, but there is an element of risk too.
You don’t just extend a player’s contract to ensure you get some money from them in the future, you do it because you want to build a squad for them to be part of your team, and it’s hard to plan properly when you can’t be relatively sure a player is going to be available. This season Wilshere has 25 appearances under his belt, Ramsey just 19.
To put that in context, having not played that often in the Europa League, our most reliable player is Hector Bellerin who has played 32 games. So even without the demands of European football, something which would change if we were to qualify again for the Champions League, Ramsey has missed a lot of football this season with muscular problems.
These aren’t impact injuries. It’s a string of calf, hamstring, groin strains which leave him sidelined for anywhere from three weeks to three months. How can you not take that into consideration when thinking about the future? As I said, if it were me and if he was keen to do it, I’d tie him down, but I’d also be thinking very strongly about how best to deal with what feel like inevitable absences throughout the season. When you’re making plans, can you count on him being fit?
I’m not sure you can, which might make some decide to go a different way with him and let him go, but I still think there’s enough on his side to make him part of the squad next season. The other part of that, of course, is what Ramsey wants to do himself, and while we had success with securing Mesut Ozil with less than 6 months left on his contract, I think we need to be a bit more decisive with these situations as they cast a shadow over the squad and the player as we saw with both Ozil and Sanchez. He may not want to extend, and if that’s the case there’s very little we can do about it.
Anyway, whoever is making the decisions this summer, let’s hope they do it with some efficiency. Right, not a lot else happening. Back to the PCP chainsaws. Or, I might just go out in the real world.
Till tomorrow.
