Should latest injury issues be a concern?
The Gunners were rocked by injuries to Gabriel Jesus and Mikel Merino before the start of the international break, which has been made worse further by the injury to Riccardo Calafiori in Italy’s win against France a few days ago. Fears of a potential injury were quickly dismissed by the Italian manager with him stating the likelihood of Calafiori being available for their next game. However Calafiori has now left the Italian camp to report back to the club to conduct further tests and rehabilitation. This has been done as a precaution not to risk exacerbating the injury in the next game and to assess how serious his injury could be..
We know about the importance of having strength in depth due to the unforgiving fixture schedule and given the calibre of opposition we’ll be coming up against, this injury (if it proves to be long-term) will weaken us, regardless of whether we have options at left back or not. Ironically, it’s the players we’ve bought during the transfer window that have picked up injuries when they were meant to provide strength in depth, whether from the start or as a backup option. This should be a concern to us (if Riccy goes out for a while) because that will mean that we’re lighter than we were at the end of last campaign due to us moving numerous players on this summer.
Having injuries to key players early on in the campaign should be a worry given we run the risk of falling behind Man City due to the next tough set of fixtures we’ll be playing. Gabi Jesus is reported to hopefully be back before the game against spurs which would represent a big boost due to the more options it opens up for midfield replacements (after Rice’s Red card) against Spurs nevertheless Merino is expected to be out longer, and if Calafiori were to follow him out then it would represent a big problem for Mikel Arteta.
Gooners should not hit the panic buttons yet, given Calafiori’s injury has not been confirmed as serious yet, and his return to London could just be protective measures from the club, however we run the risk of going into a mini-injury crisis if it does prove to be a serious injury.
Will losing our two new signings to injury so early in the season be a big concern to Mikel and the club?
KENNETH BENJAMIN.
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So Arteta’s getting the blame for this!?
Certainly, the injuries to Merino and Calafiori were both unexpected and unfortunate, but these things happen in football all the time and will, no doubt, happen again to Arsenal players across the season. What’s new?
The fact that Jesus is injured was not (that) unexpected though given his record and, unfortunately, leaves Arsenal even lighter than they were in the striker department.
That said, Arsenal has a large squad despite these injuries and departures over the summer. Arteta will have to make the best of what’s available. As someone said in an entirely different context: There is no alternative.
Exactly. Every season almost every club goes through these types of periods with unexpected injuries or otherwise unavailable players, just ask any manager, lol. At the same time you can’t prepare for all contingencies (unless you’re like Chelsea with a 2nd squad training out back🤦♂️). Depending on luck more than anything else, the extent of these occurrences varies. You just have to get through these periods as best as possible and move forward to better times.
Well said at Bertie👌
Let’s not make injuries to some Arsenal players an issue this thing happens. And not peculiar to Arsenal. Timber is already back in training with Netherland, Calafiori I jury is a precaution according to the Italian coach. I read Thieney is gradually training. Spurds have their own concern too.
The players we have can still compete with Spurds. No worries…
We the fans we are so worried about our team, am just pray that we cam get them back before we facing all the big games we have this weeks .
(Outrageously Numerous) Injuries made Manchester United, Brighton, Wolves, Luton… very woeful last season
We better be careful
Yes, we can manage it, but we’ll fall far behind
Last match with Brighton was a 3points in the bag before Rice’ red
That match would have ended at least 3-0
But guess what -> we dropped points
Cos of the event of a red card
The events of (too much) injuries will see us drop many many points
But nothing to worry about yet though
And we know Partey is a sojourner in this our League-race, he’ll soon be gone -> to an injury
If injuries continue like this, it’ll be difficult for arsenal to make class competition to other teams. Arsenal’s capability to cope with injuries is very slim because Arteta is not that kind of coach that encourages academic boys. Liverpool had numerous injuries on key players last season but Kopp managed the team with the academy boys and they even won him the carabao cup. That’s the opposite with Arteta. Definitely, we’re going to drop points especially on the road if injuries continue to rock on arsenal.
Apparently Odegaard went off tonight with an ankle knock.
I watched the game and saw him hobble off the pitch on the shoulders of two helpers.
It’d better not be a serious thing otherwise we’d be in serious trouble. I have always feared the most for an Odegaard injury because he is the one critical player in the team without an obvious like-for-like replacement
Came back to London on crutches, hopefully it’s nothing serious.
We were relatively injury free last season compared to other clubs but this season is already looking like one of those Arsenal seasons where the TV camera pans to our bench and the commentator makes a quip about the amount of unavailable talent sitting there while the manager agonises that having such and such a player back will be just like a new signing. Let’s hope the injuries to Odegaard and Califiori are not long term.
As it stands with odegaard’s injury, we may have to move saka to odegaard’s position with sterling playing at rw…. or try Jorginho there as well cuz they both are the next best passers into the final third after skippo…..
a midfield trio of jorginho, partey and timber should dominate possession against spuds….with zinchenko at left back also inverting into the midfield should be too much for the spuds midfield to handle…..
I hope arteta does the right thing cuz of the physicality and brutal nature of the NLD …..sterling saka havertz can lead the attack with trossard and martinelli coming on later to stretch tired legs….victory shall be ours
Saka cannot be moved in our setup
He’s the brain of our A-levels attack prowess (alongside Odegaard)
Moving him about in Brighton match made certain that we wouldn’t be able to score nor constructive create an attacking opportunity asides chasing scrap opportuned opportunities like we saw
We can’t constructively create without Saka on the right – that’s where 70% of all we do comes from
If you go rewatch our Champions League against Bayern & watch it open-minded that’s when notice how one-way our plan to create a scoring chance can be
Bayern was forcing us to the left
But we kept going back to that right -EVERY < 1 minute.
It's how we know to create something