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.

        Saka out for ‘many weeks’ according to Arteta. Hard to interpret that as technically 3-4 weeks could be ‘many’.

        Either way seems likely he’ll be missing for a while. Sterling also out for a while. Big test for us.

        I hope we don’t force Jesus wide just as he’s getting his mojo back.

          Pl title is gone. Too many injuries and freak incidents (refs and red cards).

          Sterling getting injured exactly the same time as Saka sums up this season on the injury front.

          goon when I saw what he did, I said to James it looked almost identical to how I did mine many years ago. Completely tore it, managed to get back to playing in six weeks. Was actually one of my smoothest ever rehabs - not that that's saying much!

            Terrible news. The double blow with Sterling means our attacking depth has disappeared too.

            Could be out until March , we will need to get an attacker in January

            At least he does not need surgery, that shit can ruin a player. Do we have money to buy someone? He is the only scorer in the team, things are about to get painful

              HomeSteak we will be forced to score through other means. Fortunately we scored 5 goals through other means on Saturday night.

                I think we're not gonna have a choice but to dip into the market. With all due respect to Martinelli, he doesnt function as well on the right. I'm pretty sure this is any chance of our title aspirations going up in smoke for this year. We just have to hope we can do well in the CL. We need to win that next game, and we will at least be in the top 8.

                  USArsenal the big issue here is wear and tear. Jesus has been fragile. So you have 3 healthy forwards that will need to play all the time.
                  Nwaneri played some minutes at forward on Saturday, so I can see him as a 9 or a winger these next few weeks, but not covering Saka minutes. The Edu replacement has a real baptism of fire 🔥

                    Apparently, Arteta has attributed the Saka injury to him playing too many minutes in the last couple of seasons without rest. Wonder who was the Arsenal manager that basically played him every available minute with no rest and even brought him on in a meaningless Carabao cup game where we were already up.

                      Bernard Woolley he's wrong about that. I know he's wrong because when we brought it up here that maybe he was playing too many games and in competitions he shouldn't be we were told it was absolutely fine and a non-issue and we should stop saying that.

                        HomeSteak At least he does not need surgery, that shit can ruin a player.

                        Turns out he did need surgery!

                        We've known for a long time Saka has problems but we've kept pushing him. He has been carrying an achilles problem for a while as well which is why he limps a lot IIRC. Hopefully this extended time off now he can get on top of his issues.