By Fab4.
Arsenal have been hit by further bad news on the injury front, with both William Gallas and Andrey Arshavin potentially being ruled out for the rest of the season.
It is more ridiculous bad luck for Arsenal in a season that has been littered with serious injuries to key players. I have never known a club to have as many injuries as Arsenal have had this season, there must be a under-lying reason behind it all. It can’t simply been down to bad luck.
Gallas had missed Arsenal’s last 8 games with a calf strain and had only trained for 3 days when Wenger took the gamble to start him against Barcelona on Wednesday, but he pulled up after about 30 minutes with a recurrence of the injury.
The immediate diagnosis was 3 weeks but now Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has confirmed that the defender more likely to miss 5 weeks which would basically rule him out for the season.
Wenger said: ‘Gallas is longer than three weeks, I would say five weeks. It was a gamble which did not pay off and was a mistake, yes.
‘He could be back maybe quicker, but I just give myself five weeks because three weeks is a minimum and we will have to be a bit more cautious with him.
‘So when we go to the Champions League final, he still has a chance to play.’
It now looks like the void will be filled by Sol Campbell, but Wenger will have to be careful with the 35-year old as he can’t complete 2 games in 4 days, so it’s likely he will rotate with Silvestre or Song.
The problem with moving Song back into the centre back position is that leaves a gap in midfield already deprived of the services of Cesc Fabregas and Aaron Ramsey through broken legs.
The news on Arshavin is less clear with the player claiming he may be out for the season as he feels he has torn his calf muscle.
‘I think I have torn it (calf muscle),’ he was quoted as saying by the Sport-Express newspaper.
‘If that’s true, then I’ll be out for a long time, at best after three weeks but at worst I won’t play at all this season.’
While Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger feels the player will be out for 3 weeks and hopes to have him available for the Manchester City match.
“I don’t think [he will miss the remained of the season],” said the manager.“Let’s count 21 days. It is April 2. April 23 he should be capable to play. Possibly Man City. He should be available for that game.”
Either way it’s another huge blow for Arsenal and they really are down to the bare bones for a vital month as they travel to the Nou Camp in the champions league and are fighting it out with Man Utd and Chelsea for the premier league title.
However, Arsenal have been boosted with the news that defender Gael Clichy and midfielder Denilson are fit for tomorrow’s match against Wolves after both picked up knocks against Barcelona.
I think Arsene really needs to sit down and figure out why Arsenal are having all these injury problems, it’s becoming ridiculous now. We have sustained 3 broken legs this season, Nasri, Ramsey and now Fabregas, along with RVP being out for 6 months, Djourou for almost a year, Gibbs for over 6 months and Arshavin, Gallas, Clichy, Bendtner, Eduardo, Denilson and Vela have all missed parts of the season through various musculer problems. It feels like there isn’t a player in the squad who hasn’t been injured at some point in this campaign.
When was the last time Arsenal were able to put out their first choice eleven? I honestly can’t remember.
Let’s hope we get through the Wolves game un-scathed and have at least 11 fit players to take to the field for Tuesday’s monumental game at the Nou Camp.
