Arsenal Team News: Wenger Confirms Injury Doubts + Wilshere Update

Arsenal will look to end their much talked about trophy drought when they take on Hull City in the FA Cup final this weekend.

Ahead of the game, boss Arsene Wenger has been speaking to the press at his pre-match press conference this morning and he gave Arsenal.com a team news and injury update.

The good news is that we’ve not picked up any fresh injury concerns from the 2-0 win over Norwich on Sunday but the boss did confirm that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Thomas Vermaelen remain fitness doubts.

Chamberlain has barely played since starring in our FA Cup semi final win over Wigan last month after aggravating a groin injury. The 20-year-old returned to training this morning and the boss says he’ll make a decision on Thursday over whether the midfielder will be in the squad on Saturday or not.

Vermaelen missed the final Premier League win over Norwich with a cut knee and Arsene says he too is a doubt for Wembley after requiring stitches in the wound, so a late decision will also be made over his availability.

He told Arsenal.com:

on the team news…

Everybody should be available who played in our last game at Norwich. There’s still some uncertainty about Oxlade-Chamberlain (groin) and Vermaelen who was out at the last minute with stitches in his knee. We’ll know more about that tomorrow or Friday.

on waiting on Oxlade-Chamberlain’s fitness…

I will only know [on Thursday] if he has a chance to be in the squad or not.

The boss also gave the clubs website an update on the fitness of Jack Wilshere. The midfielder returned at the weekend from over two months on the sidelines with a fractured foot, and he came through the final 30 minutes at Carrow Road unscathed.

Arsene says Wilshere is continuing to work hard to regain his match fitness and feels the 22-year-old will be 100% fit in time for when the World Cup kicks off in mid-June. He continued:

on Wilshere’s fitness…

He works hard. We have a hard session today [Wednesday] again and he progresses. He played 30 minutes at Norwich, that was planned, he came out well. If you ask me about the World Cup, he should just have enough time to be fully fit.

Obviously it’s highly unlikely either Wilshere or The Ox will start against Hull on Saturday but hopefully they can get at least 30 minutes under their belts and they should be fresh for England in Brazil this summer.

There is still speculation over whether Arsene will opt to stick with Lukasz Fabianski and Yaya Sanogo in the final after the pair started in previous rounds of the cup, or whether he’ll bring in Wojecich Szczesny and Olivier Giroud.

I personally feel it’s too important a game to take any chances so we should be picking our strongest eleven. Fabianski is also leaving this summer so there is another argument as to why he should be left out, but we’ll have to see what the boss decides.

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