Arsenal Injury News: Wenger Offers Update On Walcott, Koscielny, Ramsey + More

Arsenal will look to get their season back on track when we take on Hull City at the Emirates on Saturday afternoon.

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

The boss confirmed the bad news that Laurent Koscielny’s Achilles injury has got worse and he will miss the game on Saturday. The centre-back was forced out of the France squad last week and although he doesn’t require surgery, he’s in too much discomfort to play this weekend.

Arsene also revealed that Theo Walcott is back in full training but he won’t be in contention against Hull as he’ll instead continue his comeback by playing for the Under-21’s on Friday night.

Serge Gnabry has also returned to full training but is slightly behind Walcott in his recovery so he too isn’t available this weekend, but thankfully Mikel Arteta has been passed fit and is back in the squad after three weeks out with a calf injury that he picked up against Spurs.

Aaron Ramsey also suffered a hamstring problem in that game but the Welshman is set to return to training on Monday and Wenger has confirmed the midfielder will be back in the squad for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Anderlecht.

Yaya Sanogo has barely featured this season and the striker is not yet under consideration but Tomas Rosicky is expected to be fit despite picking up a minor calf problem during the international break.

The final update concerned the fitness of Mesut Ozil and Wenger explained the situation surrounding the German’s knee injury and how he was unaware of the problem until after the game against Chelsea.

Wenger told the clubs website:

on the team news…

We have been hit a bit hard with Koscielny coming back and his Achilles being worse, and of course discovering the Ozil injury which we thought was nothing because he finished the Chelsea game. He is out for a while now. For the rest, the positive news is Walcott is back in full training, Serge Gnabry is back in full training, We have as well Giroud ahead of schedule, so we have some positive news.

on whether Walcott could face Hull….

No, he will play on Friday night in the under-21s. He has been out for nine months and needs to find some rhythm in the game and some confidence to go into the contact.

on Gnabry being on contention…

Gnabry is like Walcott, he has been a bit more in and out, he had no big surgery. But he is not completely ready today, he is even a bit behind Walcott. I don’t think either of them will be involved.

on Arteta…

Arteta is back in the group, and will be in the squad.

on Ramsey…

Saturday’s game is too soon for Aaron. He will be back in full training on Monday and certainly in the squad for Wednesday [against Anderlecht].

on Sanogo…

He is too short, not ready yet but not far away.

on Koscielny…

No [he will not be available]. He has an achilles problem, which has got worse. he finds it difficult to play with it at the moment. You can only trust what the players says, he does not feel ready to play and will not play on Saturday. No [he will not need surgery].

on Rosicky…

Rosicky came back with a kick on the calf. He’s supposed to practice today. He didn’t play the second international game because of that but he should be available for Saturday.

on Ozil…

He told me [about the injury] once it was discovered on the scan. He did not tell me anything during the Chelsea game, I did not know. What happened was that at half-time, just before we went out, he had a little pain with his knee but it was not bad. He wanted to go on and I told him, ‘If you don’t feel well, tell me and I will take you off straight away’. He never did that during the whole game, and after I left him on because we were in a position where we needed to score a goal and he can deliver the final ball. Then after the game, he went to Germany. With Germany, they thought at the start it was nothing. We played on Sunday, on Monday he was off, and on Tuesday they gave him the day off. He was supposed to practice on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, he said he could still not practice. They sent him for a scan, and in this scan they discovered that he a knee ligament injury which is quite serious.

With Koscielny out we’re down to the bare bones in defence. Nacho Monreal is probably favourite to start alongside Per Mertesacker but I’d like to see Isaac Hayden given a chance to impress.

It’s great to have Arteta back and I’m guessing he’ll replace Mathieu Flamini in midfield this weekend, while the squad should be boosted further with Ramsey, Walcott and Gnabry all set to return over the new couple of weeks, so suddenly the boss will have plenty of options again.