Defensive injury worries abound ahead of Monaco clash

It’s Champions League action this evening as we face Monaco at home, and it’s fair to say the injury news wasn’t particularly promising yesterday.

Jurrien Timber, Thomas Partey, Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori and Oleksandr Zinchenko were absent from the main session, to which the media have limited access at the start. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t be available tonight, but if the three that weren’t fit enough to play against Fulham still aren’t ready, that doesn’t augur well.

As for Timber and Partey, we might be taking a cautious approach to their fitness. The former has had some niggles here and there since coming back from his big injury last season, while the latter has played a lot throughout this campaign and hasn’t always been able to deal with a heavy burden of playing time during his Arsenal career. Mikel Arteta said:

We have to manage a lot of the players. Some of them are probably not going to be fit to be play tomorrow, some of them are still out, so we have still 24 hours to make those decisions.

My guess is that one of the two right-backs will play, your guess is as good as mine as to who. If they’re both out, we have a significant problem because even youngster Josh Nichols is struggling with an injury right now, although I’m not 100% sure he’s even quite ready for this level yet. In that circumstance, the option we’d most likely take with a back four is to move Declan Rice to right-back – because at least in central midfield there are experienced options – or the manager could use a back three, but that’s not something he’s been particularly keen on in recent years.

In that instance, Kieran Tierney could be an option; similarly he could get a start at left-back, with Arteta insisting:

He’s ready. He’s trained really well and he’s going to have an opportunity for sure.

Can you realistically get 90 minutes of Champions League football from someone who hasn’t played a competitive club game since May? Probably not, but if Myles Lewis-Skelly is fit, then there’s an alternative, or maybe someone who could start instead. It’s worth noting that he too has been having some injury issues this season, so none of these decisions are particularly simple.

As I mentioned, with Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, Jorginho and Ethan Nwaneri, there are midfield options available even if Rice is required further back, while in the front three it’s hard to know what Arteta can do differently. The Gabriel Martinelli/Leandro Trossard decision on the left is a coin flip between two players who have goals and assists to their names this season (perhaps not enough to be fair), but whose inconsistency means neither has been able to nail down the starting place.

Kai Havertz up top, Bukayo Saka from the right, and after that it’s surely a risk to pick one of Gabriel Jesus or Raheem Sterling from the start given how little they’ve contributed this season. You could say that lack of opportunities to start games has played a part in that, but neither player has made the most of their cameos from the bench to push themselves into the starting XI.

As for Monaco, they’ve had a bright enough season so far, conceding the second fewest goals in Ligue 1, and going well in Europe. They started their campaign with a 2-1 win over Barcelona (although an early red card for the Catalans played a part), so there’s some quality to contend with later on. The vaguely anticipated reunion with former Gunner Folarin Balogun (you knew he was playing there, right?!), won’t take place as he misses out with a shoulder injury that now requires surgery.

So, there are some worries going into this one. The injury situation feels problematic for obvious reasons, but the other aspect is that is that it asks a lot of those who can play – because they have to play all the time. The right-back area is one we’re going to have to manage very carefully over the next little while, and while I’m not quite as worried about some with regards the goalscoring situation, it would be very useful if a couple of these guys could get firing again.

These are the tests that football throws at you though. You don’t get sympathy points because you’re missing players, you have to go out, dig deep, and play for the points that actually matter. Fingers crossed we can do that later on.

Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now. We have a preview podcast available right now on Patreon. Join us later for live blog coverage, plus you’ll get the match report, goal clips, reaction, player ratings and much more over on Arseblog News.

Until then.

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