Arsenal Team News: Wenger Gives Latest On Podolski, Sagna & Rotating His Team

Arsenal welcome Hull City to the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday evening looking to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League.

We head into the midweek fixtures holding a four point advantage over Chelsea following our 3-0 win away at Cardiff on Saturday and have a good opportunity to at least maintain that gap tomorrow night.

Arsene Wenger has given Arsenal.com the latest team and injury news including the latest on the fitness of Bacary Sagna and Lukas Podolski.

Sagna has been ruled out of the clash against the Tigers after suffering a slight hamstring strain at the weekend. His absence means Carl Jenksinson will come in for a rare start at right back.

Podolski has been on the sidelines for over three months after tearing his hamstring against Fenerbache back in August. However, Wenger has confirmed the German forward will return to full training on Thursday and should be back in contention for a place in the squad within a week.

Wenger told the clubs official website:

on the team news for Hull City…

From Saturday against Cardiff we will lose Sagna, who has a slight hamstring problem. He should be out for tomorrow’s game.

on Sagna’s replacement…

Jenkinson is likely to come back.

on Lukas Podolski…

Lukas Podolski should be back in normal training after the Hull game.

on when he can feature…

What he lacks is competition. You would say it will take at least a week with normal training to consider him fit for the squad.

It sounds like we will see some changes for the game tomorrow with Wenger also confirming he plans to rotate his squad every game during the busy festive period to keep the players fresh and prevent them from suffering fatigue.

“I rotate considering the level of fatigue,” he said. “We have some indications – my eyes, some objective data and as well some positions where it’s more demanding on the physical front than others.

“We have so many games that in some positions I will have to change; the full-back position is one that is very demanding. Central defence is a little bit less demanding on the physical side, it’s more on the concentration side.

“When you play so many games of that intensity, we expect to lose one or two players. In every single game I [will rotate]. I try to limit the number because I do not want to disrupt the balance of the team, so I do that in every single game.”

This means that as well as Jenkinson, we could see the likes of Thomas Vermaelen, Nacho Monreal, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky and Mathieu Flamini all return to the starting eleven against Hull.

With our injured players now coming back to full fitness, Wenger has options and will be able to utilise his squad effectively throughout a busy December schedule. Hopefully this wont disrupt the team too much and have an adverse effect on results.

What team would you like to see start tomorrow? Share your suggestions below.