Arsenal Injury Update: Chamberlain, Szczesny & More….

Arsenal travel to Reading tonight for the 4th round of the Capital One Cup and manager Arsene Wenger has given an injury update ahead of the game.

The boss currently has several first team players out injured and gave the latest news on Gervinho, Wojciech Szczesny and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Gervinho was forced off with an ankle injury shortly after coming on against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday and Wenger confirmed the forward is definitely out of tonight’s match and had a scan to find out the extent of the problem on Monday.

Szczesny has been out of action for over six weeks with an ankle complaint but despite returning to full training on Monday, the Polish stopper is still not fit to face Reading.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is also missing and joins Kieran Gibbs, Lukasz Fabianski, Abou Diaby and Tomas Rosicky on the sidelines. Speaking to Arsenal.com, Wenger said:

on Gervinho…

“He has an ankle problem. How long he will be out, we don’t know. He has a scan today (Monday).”

on Szczesny…

“He is close, but not ready for the Reading game.”

on other team news…

“Oxlade-Chamberlain is not available for this game. He would have loved to play. Apart from that, I don’t think anyone else will be back.”

on any other young players being out…

“No, the players we want to be available are available.”

So while the injury list is slowly subsiding, we’re still a couple of weeks away from having a fully-fit squad to choose from.

Szczesny and Chamberlain should be back to face Man Utd on Saturday though so with Jack Wilshere also successfully returning at the weekend, we’ll have a far stronger team going to Old Trafford than we did last year, that’s for sure.

But the focus must be on tonight when Andrei Arshavin will lead the youngsters out against Reading. We’ll have a match preview up shortly.

What would your team be against Man Utd if Szczesny and Chamberlain are fit? Get involved in the comments section.

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