Arsenal Handed Double Injury Boost But Koscielny Ruled Out Of Sunderland Clash

Arsenal have been handed a double boost with Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck expected to be named in the squad to face Sunderland but Laurent Koscielny is once again ruled out, according to the Telegraph.

Walcott has been on the sidelines since rupturing his knee ligament during our FA Cup clash with Tottenham back in January. However, the 25-year-old returned to training earlier this month and got 45 minutes under his belt for the Under-21’s last Friday night.

Arsene Wenger is set to make a final call after training on Friday but the Telegraph suggest that as things stand, the boss plans to name the attacker in the squad this weekend.

Walcott’s return is excellent news as we’ve sorely missed his pace and threat from the wing these past 10 months. There’s no chance he’ll start from the beginning but it looks as though he’ll be on the bench against Sunderland on Saturday which will give us a real option to change things up in the second half.

In a further boost the newspaper suggests that Danny Welbeck is expected to shake off a minor knock that he picked up last night against Anderlecht to make the trip to the Stadium of Light this weekend. With Olivier Giroud already on the sidelines we would have been left extremely short up front had Welbeck been ruled out, so thankfully he’s okay.

However, there was some disappointing news with the Telegraph revealing that Laurent Koscielny will once again miss out as he continues to struggle with an Achilles problem. The defender has been nursing the injury in recent weeks and it looks like he still needs further rest so won’t be making the trip to Wearside this weekend.

The sooner we can get Koscielny back the better as we look a complete shambles at the back right now. In his absence, Nacho Monreal could continue his partnership alongside Per Mertesacker at the back against Sunderland. Let’s hope they do a better job than they did against Anderlecht.