After Arsene Wenger confirmed that the latest Arsenal players to be hit by injury, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott, will definitely not be available until after the next international break and that none of our eight crocked Gunners will be available for the next three games, the question of priorities raises it´s head once more.
It is a real shame that after pulling off that stunning victory over the German giants last week, that Arsenal may be forced into rotating the squad and playing a weakened side against Bayern Munich next week. The plain fact is, however, that the Premier League must take precedence, especially as it looks like we have a real chance of winning it.
Not only do the injuries to Walcott, Chambo, Welbeck, Rosicky, Wilshere, Arteta, Ramsey and Ospina leave our squad a bit stretched, they highlight how vulnerable we are and put the fear of picking up any more in the mind of the manager.
It does not help that Arsenal face a full blooded north London derby a few days after the trip to Bayern Munich either and Wenger will surely want to field his strongest possible team against the spuds without having to worry about key players being tired or carrying little knocks or niggles.
Will Arsenal have no choice but to sacrifice our Champions League chances?
OT
Cambell played very well at the world against good teams like England, Italy, Uruguay and Holland.. he also played well against Manure in the champs league.. thats why i think he should get his chance against Swansea, Bayern and the Spuds.. its his time to shine.. if he doesnt grab this chance like what Coq or Bellerin did last season, he will have nobody but himself to blame
If we have proved it against Watford, Bayern, and Everton with our first XI, then lets repeat the same against Swansea, Bayern and Spuds again. Only change Campbell instead of Ramsey/Ox.
COYG
For me, apart from Ramsey out campbell in, we can still play our first choice x1. Ramsey aside it’s our 2nd choice x1 that is really affected by injury
1st x1
Cech fit
Bellerin fit
Gabriel fit
Koscielny fit
Monreal fit
Coquelin fit
Cazorla fit
Ramsey injured
Ozil fit
Alexis fit
Giroud fit
2nd x1
Ospina injured
Debuchy fit
Mertesacker fit
Chambers fit
Gibbs fit
Arteta injured
Wilshire injured
Chamberlain injured
Rosicky injured
Welbeck injured
Walcott injured
So we bring in a 3Rd x1 player campbell to play right wing, which is his best position. We bring in our 3Rd choice keeper to sit on the bench, our 3Rd choice dm flamini to sit on the bench and our 3Rd choice left winger iwobi to sit on the bench. It really isn’t as extreme as everyone things apart from we probably have too many defenders on the bench. Personally i would leave out Debuchy or chambers adding Stephen mavididi, who for me is probably the best goal threat in the academy.
3Rd x1
Macey
Moore pleguezuelo oconnor bola
Bielik flamini
Campbell reine-adelaide iwobi
Mavididi
Let’s focus on Swansea game first before thinking of Bayern and Spurs game.
We don’t want what happened to us in our first two champions league game simply because we have our mind/sight on Chelsea and Manu game respectively.
One game at a time and as far as I know’, Swansea is next. A game we lost last season. They actually defeated us both legs last season…So we need to bring our A-Game on Saturday. Arsenal All The Way!
Totally agree! !!!
Focus on the next game….and then then next after that and so on
Arsenal will not sacrifice anything for something but will go all out to claim 2 victories in those 2 outings. In as much as the Premier League is very important to Arsenal to win this season, so too is Ucl equally very important to Arsenal to win. Winning the 2 are unseprable from each other. They are 2 in 1. And Arsenal will continue to field their strongest available team to fight in those 2 competitions at any given time. Let Arsenal focus on Swansea for now and deal with the Swans in a manner they won’t forget Arsenal beat them so badly.
There are a lot of players on the Arsenal books but there has to be a cut off point where any
player below that line can not, and probably never, will make first grade so that is how we judge
our playing depth. At present our cut off point is too high.
With so many injuries we must go against Munich with a game plan and be content with a draw! Lets not plan for an all out win and do something foolish like we done so many times in the ucl! A draw would mean we can finish grup stage wid 10 points and easily clear of olympiakos!
I’d imagine Alexis is going to be almost a CF even more so than he almost already is one. And that Bayern will pay extra attention to him as well swa and every other team now that our attack has been weakened. In a years time I forsee Jelalem replacing Ozil then Ozil moving out to wing if similar scenario to now where to happen, that’s if we see Campbell or Iwobi etc fail to succeed.
Had a thought, we mentioned yesterday how an alternative choice to putting an inexperienced winger in would be to play Gibbs on the left with Sanchez heading to Bellerins wing. Bayern would be a good match for this with Gibbs defensive nouse along with him being so quick. Also what I like about the Gibbs option is he is much more experienced than the two wingers and has played this role lately.
We can forget any rotation, we haven’t got any more players left to rotate with!
Just like every other season,
Its getting boring and too predictable!
Just incase anyone missed the previous episodes!
Here’s a little reminder for whats in store in the coming months:
More injuries, followed by a big dip in form,
We drop out of the title race and out of the champions league
and there will be no signings in the January window.
Key players return from injury and we battle on to claim 4th spot but no FA cup victory this year.
I’m sick of Wenger’s failure in bringing in more quality players! ???
Even his scouts are now saying that he is too Indecisive
We do have a very good defense though.
My grievance with wenger is unwillingness to have a temporary fix or solution as to having an immediate impact. The striking department needs a short term striker to input another dimension in wenger’s tactical acumen because I’m not comfortable with a slow Giroud against a formidable team like bayern munich and even against swansea a small but giant slayer team.
Hernandez chicharito would been a good throw of the dice and he would’ve added grease as to giving a cushion effect to our injurious elbow and fragile striking department.
Wenger is overly deft adamant on long term program in all his decision making.
Must admit I’m not so confident on sneaking a result in Munich now that Theo won’t be playing, after all it was the counter attacks with speed which done the damage. Lets hope Joel can get some confidence quick because we seen how he is a dangerous player when confident in the WC. He is not a kid anymore so he should be able to use that great physique to start rivaling Theo Oxlade to becoming alternate plan/style to Aaron.