By Fab4.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger say’s he may gamble with Cesc Fabregas, who is 50:50 to make the Porto game after aggravating his hamstring injury during Saturday’s win over Burnley. After the game Wenger has confirmed he is ready to take a cautious gamble with his captain.
“I’m ready to take the gamble,” he said. “But it depends how big the gamble is. If it is more than a 50 per cent chance his hamstring goes [on the night] then I will not take it.
Don’t do it Arsene, it’s not worth it. Cesc hasn’t trained this morning so they staff are obviously resting his injury and giving him as much chance as possible of making the game, but for me he clearly won’t be 100% fit so stick him on the bench. The premiership is more important than the champions league in my opinion.
This is Arsenal’s best chance in years of winning the Premier League, we are right in the mix and if we are to have any chance of beating Chelsea and Man Utd to the title then we will need a fully fit Cesc Fabregas. Simple as that. We have more chance of winning the premier league than the champions league so it has to be the priority.
We have 9 games left in the league. With the only ‘real’ tests being the Spuds and Birmingham away along with the home game against City. But they are 9 winnable games. To win the Champions League we would need to play 6 more games. A second leg against Porto, 2x Quarter-finals, 2x Semi-finals and a final. Those 6 games will be against far superior opposition than Wolves, Hull et al. To win the Champions League we will have to beat the likes of Chelsea, Man Utd, Barcalona or Real Madrid at some stage. So if its winning 9 games against Wolves and Hull or trying to naviagate past Barca and United then i know which one i would choose.
Wenger was forced to bring on a half-fit Fabregas against Aston Villa in December, with Cesc winning us the game but tearing his hamstring in the process which ruled him out for 3 weeks. A similar situation against Porto tomorrow and you can kiss the premier league goodbye for another year.
I know some will say that if Fabregas was ruled out for 3 weeks we could beat the likes of Hull, Birmingham and West Ham without him. But it’s simply not worth finding out if that’s true. He is too important.
Say Wenger starts him, we beat Porto but Cesc does further damage to his hamstring and is ruled out for 3 weeks. Will it be worth it? He helped win us one game against Porto but now he will definitely miss Hull, West Ham and Birmingham in the premier league but may also miss the Champions League Quarter-final first leg, where we may have to play the likes of Man Utd , Chelsea or Barcalona without him. Surely that’s counter-productive in the long-term?
I strongly believe we can beat Porto without Fabregas anyway. A front six of Song, Diaby, Nasri, Walcott, Bendtner and Arshavin can easily tear Porto apart. If we’re struggling then bring Fabs on but don’t start him. If Wenger is willing to risk Fabregas just to beat Porto at home then it shows how desperate he is to win the Champions League and that’s clouding his judgement.
Do you think Fabregas should be risked? Please leave your comments below….
