No surprises there. Everyone pretty much assumed he wouldn't play much, if anything at all, during 2014 after such a difficult injury.

@ Yuv: Indeed. Especially as I was just about to draft him into my fantasy league team.

Uuuuugh!

For flip sake, Ramsey out for a month now?
I can't take much more of this injury business.

Sham Fraudsythe. May aswell have given Dick Law the job.

Yeah, I don't know what's happening. Hard to get a feeling for where the responsibility lies too. On one hand you'd expect the players to pick up some extra injuries in the beginning when you change the way they train, but we're talking about small muscle and soft tissue injuries, not long-term ones like we have suffered all season. Gotta wonder what Forsythe has done since he arrived and what his long-term projection for the team was. Safe to say that he must be below the curve at the moment.

Then again, the world cup screws things up for everyone. United are even worse than us; they have suffered 44 injuries this season. There's just an insane amount of physical strain put on players in the modern game, and Premier League makes it worse by being such a backwards league. Two domestic cups, no winter break and one game every three days for extended periods of time... situation's just untenable.

I think our situation is a mix of being unfortunate and not having a good enough squad. Wenger couldn't afford to rest Kos at any point because he was what tied the defence together. In itself that fact tells you that we should have done whatever was in our power to sign another centreback of that calibre in the summer.

It's a couple of weeks old now but this article puts us joint third with Stoke on the team with the most players injured list.
Chelsea have the least amount injured, funny how the likes of old man Terry seem to play every game without any ill effects. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/premier-league-injuries-chelsea-have-it-best-with-just-one-player-out-while-newcastle-have-13-missing-and-manchester-united-eight-9890699.html

The fan reactions are volatile about every other aspect of how the club is run (tactics, finances etc.) but somehow with the most important mismanagement that ruins our season the club seem to get away quite lightly. It's just a given that Walcott, Ramsey, Wilshere, Ozil, Kos, Arteta are out at the same time. It's why our season was over before it started. I know plenty think we don't have a big enough squad - it used to be a valid concern but I don't think that's the problem now. The 2 line-ups I posted above are almost equal in quality. If they were fit, Wenger would 'rotate' as he's doing now with the front line. We'll rely on our best players but every club does that. Many always want to keep us to buying players - maybe there's some special excitement over seeing new faces, but I'm quite happy seeing the ones we've got. We're paying these players very generous money but they're never on the pitch. 

An interesting stat would be comparing wages per mins played. Who are we really getting good value from. I'm still pissed off about the Wilshere injury, I'm sure the Ramsey one will start to grate as soon as Colback and Tiote start controlling the midfield tomorrow. 

Best look for someone to replace Koscielny now. He has joined the dead with Gnabry, Theo and Diaby.

We've recalled Coquelin from his loan spell at Charlton and I've seen twitterings that Ramsey could be out for two months.
:hmm:

Is there anything about how close Ozil is? if he's training... is it possible we'll see him in the xmas games?

That's the official information, but it seems he's training already. He was not out like Theo.

Koscielny out for 3 months 🙁

We best sign a centreback

Watch Per go down next

Well done, Wenger.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Koscielny out for 3 months 🙁

Source for this?

http://football-talk.co.uk/97710/wenger-offers-koscielny-injury-update-boss-reveals-worrying-news/

Wenger told reporters yesterday:

“I have to consider the fact he [Koscielny] has an inflamed achilles and nobody can guarantee that will not come back,” Wenger said.

“No doctor says to me: ‘It’s over.’ It can come back. Even with complete rest, you need to rest him for two or three months.”

Koscielny was rested back in October but the boss went on to say that it’s important not to give the player ‘complete’ rest as in order to strengthen the Achilles again, you need to work on it. He continued:

“But he didn’t rest completely [in October],” Wenger said. “Because you have to load your achilles and strengthen, it is not a complete rest. To find back the strength in the achilles, you have to load it and work on it.”

The good news is that Wenger hasn’t ruled Koscielny out for two to three months, but it’s clear that the club are going to have to carefully manage him throughout the rest of the season before he can hopefully clear up the issue in the summer once and for all.

Sounds like Kos will play one or two games per month for the rest of the season. If we're lucky. That's just great.