Oh RVP!

Robin van Persie suffered yet another ankle injury at Ewood Park

Written by Basil James.

Bad times are back at the Emirates once again as the squad have been struck by the long and mighty arm of injury. The latest Gunner to board the surgeon’s table has been the mercurial striker Robin van Persie, who is scheduled to miss at least four weeks from now. Now that RvP is back in the familiar territory of injuries, Arsene Wenger would have to reassess his options in front of goal and may be even have to consider rejigging formations and tactics.

It is yet another ankle injury that will sideline the Dutch star for almost a month, although this time it is his left ankle that is under the scanner. Van Persie missed five months of the last season with a torn ligament in his right ankle, an injury which had a massive impact on Arsenal’s season. On Saturday, Van Persie twisted his ankle at Ewood Park after 35 minutes of the match against Blackburn and had to be substituted.

Arsenal’s next premier league game is against the physically intimidating Bolton Wanderers and Wenger has to plan ahead to earn the maximum points without the star striker. Meanwhile, Arsenal have drawn fierce rivals Tottenham in the third round of the League Cup and it does look like Arsenal will have to find alternate options in the striker’s role for that encounter, especially if Van Persie is out for four weeks. This period would also include the premier league game against Sunderland and a Champions League game against Braga .

Arsenal’s chief option might be to deploy Marouane Chamakh in the striker’s role while sticking with the same formation. Chamakh has already played in that position for Arsenal in the league when Arsenal was bereft of Van Persie’s services at the start of the league. Wenger might even consider deploying the young and talented Carlos Vela, especially as Nicklas Bendtner is still sidelined with injury.

Meanwhile, speculation has risen as to whether Wenger would dive in to the market hunting for a quality striker to fill in for Robin van Persie. Also, questions remain as to whether Wenger would consider drafting in some of the hot young talent he has in the reserves and youth teams to as a stop gap measure. However, these are more than likely to remain mere speculation as the purchase of Chamakh over the summer was in keeping in mind precisely the situation that has come up now. Moreover, the aforementioned options wold require Arsenal to change the current formation which has started to tick and promises to be a well oiled machine.

As of now, all that we can do is wish Robin a speedy recovery and hope that Arsenal keep rocking even without their Dutch star.