yeah, time to fast-track MLS, don't really have much choice

Qwiss I forgot about Tierney. Would definitely give him a go. I have liked what I've seen of Nichols too.

Might be being naive but 7 players absent from training doesn't mean they're all out for tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, it's far from ideal but doesn't have to mean crisis just yet (although indicators for the foreseeable aren't great).

Don Pacifico it is a crisis. Arteta has spoken about this in his post-game interviews, that it's impossible to prepare for games wen large parts of the squad are injured or constantly coming in and out of the squad. you end up being disjointed

Did we do a proper medical on Calafiori given the well known knee injury issues? I'm probably overly cynical but I was always a bit concerned about the process involved with him being from the same club as Tomiyasu.

invisibleman18 I don't think a medical is even necessary to know what a risk it is. We all knew he had a bum knee, and that kind of history can cause unpredictable issues under stress.

Coombs that was in 2018. Since then he's got a normal record with injuries: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/riccardo-calafiori/verletzungen/spieler/502821

I mean tomi, Zinchenko and Calafiori do appear to have injury issues. White had been carrying and managing a long term injury and it's early on timber but coming back from his long term injury it's understandable there may be complications. I feel more frustrated that we've built to much reliance on players who have struggled to stay fit that's poor squad planning.

I know gunnerblog had referenced that there were some concerns about Calafiori's injury risk when we signed him.

Mirth his record is thin because of the injury. Making 33 appearances for Bologna is proof of nothing.

Burnwinter people who actually know anything about injury recovery and resilience.

Those people don't seem to be at Arsenal, unfortunately.

Burnwinter I think he was more quoting people in football suggesting it might not be a great signing for the potential issues. Ultimately if there were concerns at the moment they look like they are legitimate given how his season has started.

Aw fuck. He's out for until the NLD at the earliest

"Saka out for six weeks" is both terrible luck and something we've been predicting for several seasons. Hope he gets a good rest.

This will force major changes to our approach and could end up being weirdly positive ...

Burnwinter it happens.
Last season was extremely lucky. That’s how you get that kind of performance.
I expect with both Saka and Sterling going down, it encourages them to get a good forward in. Hopefully, they aren’t desperate.

he'll be out for more than six, I'm sure.

banduan it'll be a big test to see how Arteta tries to reconfigure as we are so reliant on Saka as the goal contributions stat sky showed that @Clrnc posted the other day. Without him it could get very toothless very quickly.

But agree this season should be a lesson to Arteta that he needed to learn. You can't take risks on the quality of your squad, you gamble that the likes of Jesus, martinelli and havertz is enough when they're are signs we needed more and you hope Ode and Saka can continue to take the load that are given.

All of those things have come undone this season and they aren't a surprise so we need to be better then that in our squad building if we want to realise winning the big trophies.

Hopefully Martinelli can have some success on the right wing, might be able to do a patch job until Saka returns.

awooga83 You can't take risks on the quality of your squad, you gamble that the likes of Jesus, martinelli and havertz is enough when they're are signs we needed more and you hope Ode and Saka can continue to take the load that are given.

tbf Citeh gamble on not having Rodri injured for long all the time and seem to get away with it. Till now.