Arsenal Injury & Team News Update: Diaby, Frimpong & More…

Arsenal take on Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday in the FA Cup 3rd round and manager Arsene Wenger has given the latest team and injury news ahead of the game.

The boss gave an update on Lukasz Fabianski, Vito Mannone, Abou Diaby, Andre Santos and Emmanuel Frimpong as he spoke to Arsenal’s official website ahead of the weekends action.

Goalkeeper Fabianski remains on the sidelines with an ankle injury and is yet to feature this season, while Wenger confirmed fellow keeper Mannone is out through illness.

The good news is that midfielder Diaby is back in training but is still short of match fitness so is unlikely to be involved against Swansea. The same can be said of Santos who has only recently returned from a muscle strain that has kept him out since mid-November, so again he’s not expected to feature this weekend.

Frimpong is back with the club after his loan spell with Charlton expired but the midfielder is likely to miss the trip to the Liberty through illness. Overall Wenger seems happy with the state of his squad’s fitness, telling Arsenal.com:

on the latest updates…

We have Fabianski injured and Mannone sick, but apart from that, everyone is alright. At this stage of the season, we have the whole squad available. Diaby is joining in after 12 weeks out. He’s not match fit yet. Santos is joining in again. Overall the situation is very satisfying.

on Frimpong…

Frimpong is back with us. He is unfortunately sick today.

The squad is as healthy as I can remember in recent years so we certainly can’t use injures as an excuse for poor results anymore. Of the players not currently available for selection, Diaby is the only player who realistically would push for a first-team place so once he’s fully-fit, we will have our strongest team to choose from.

As for this weekend’s Swansea game, I hope Arsene puts out our best team as we could really do with a good run in the Cup, hopefully resulting in ending our 7-year trophy drought!

What would your team be for this weekend? Get involved in the comments section below.