Arsenal are facing a potential goalkeeping headache following Tuesday nights Champions League clash with Barcelona, which saw Wojciech Szczęsny substituted with a hand injury. He joins fellow Pole Łukasz Fabiański on the treatment table.
The full extent of Szczęsny’s injury is as yet unknown, but reports emerged during half time at the Nou Camp that the youngster had ruptured the ligaments in his hand, which would end his season. Manuel Almunia replaced Wojciech, and he is currently Arsenal’s only fully fit first team stopper.
Arsène Wenger does have loanees Vito Mannone and James Shea to recall, but both are also carrying small knocks. Mannone missed Hull City’s 1-0 defeat to Burnley yesterday with a recurrence of a thigh injury. The Italian will have tests on the problem, but the Tigers fear the worst, and have re-signed Brad Guzan from Aston Villa as cover.
That leaves Reserve team ‘keeper Shea, who’s loan spell with Southampton is due to expire in two weeks, and Argentine Emi Martínez, who is only just starting to hold down a regular slot for Neil Banfield’s second string.
More information will be available following scans to both Szczęsny and Mannone’s injuries.
Dammit. Just when I thought it could not get any worse for us gooners
If passed fit, could Mannone play for us at the weekend if we were to make an emergency recall?
Cannot risk the prospect of Almunia picking up an injury given that Szczesny is going to be out for a few weeks in the best case scenario.
arsene is only to blame for any bumbling GK fiasco…period…
Both Fabianski and Szczesny have shown this season that they are capable of holding the goalkeeping position for Arsenal. Thankfully, we still have some experience with our third choice goalkeeper in Almunia, as well as Mannone. Is Arsene to be blamed that our third choice goalkeeper isn’t as good as our first choice? Is there any team in the world like that?
How dare Arsene not have 4 world class keepers?!
Don’t go around being stupid with “malaysian” in your name, please, lest people think we all hold your views.
Losing two keepers to injuries have happened to many teams before and Almunia, despite his faults, is still capable in the Premier League. This is why teams keep three senior keepers.
You are joking right? Wenger is supposed to foresee that 3 of his 4 experienced goalies will get injured? Which other team can take 3 injuries to their goalies? We have the most depth in that department in the EPL.
Even our bloody goalkeepers are injury prone. My God.
Doesn’t matter who goes in goal the wheels are well and truly off for this season now.
Wenger better get focussing on convincing Cesc, Nasri, Arshavin, VP etc to stay and not go.
Personally I’d sell Cesc and VP as they can’t play 70% of the seasons games, ever.
Monty Monty Monty, again you manage to dazzle us with wisdom. Summing up Wenger must try to resign the same players he needs to sell. . . genius.
monty monty monty monty! you are my favourit inhre! always so smart comments! you rock! montey montey montey! tell me montey who should we sell of the youngers? Who has a chance? You seem to know so much? give us an analyze, pleeeese you are so smart. come on mate! pleeease!
Fabregas can go if he wants to. I know I am usually level headed when it comes to all matters Arsenal, but the way he played yesterday was diesgraceful. Not just that stupid backheel, he also backed out of at least 3 challenges. I don’t care if he was injured or not. He may as well have sat on the bench and not played at all. I thought a day would dampen my disappointment with him, but it hasn’t at all. I am not afraid of what will happen if he leaves us. I don’t know why all of you are. He has been a mere passenger this season and the season before last (2008/09) and look how we have dome so far without him. 2nd in the bloody league is what!!! I have noticed that he alternates a terrible year with a great one. He was awesome in 2007/08, but not good in 2008/09. He was then great in 2009/10, but he has been terrible in 2010/11. I know he has been injured, but still, he has not been playing and dominating as he should be. He might never again either, with all these recurring injuries. I’m not being smart either. Hamstrings are very tricky and brittle body parts. especially after you have injured them once or twice. I’m usually not one to go on like this, BUT this has been building within me all year long!!! I think we will be fine if Cesc leaves, I really do, and I am not scared to cash in RIGHT NOW and see who is ready to step in to his role. IF no one is ready, then we can go out and find somebody who is ready, or we can wait and develop our own player, I don`t care. IF Cesc leads us to the league or fa cup title THIS YEAR, I will eat some, if not all of my words. Until then I will be furious with him and view his presence as a mere luxury, if not a HINDERANCE. I am now officially ready to be roasted!!! Any takers???
i feel your pain bro, but let’s take it easy and see how we finish the season.
if that is what is meant to be then in Lanbury,Ramsey,Wilshire,Nasri,Diaby and Frimpong we have some ready-made personnel waiting.
but remember love is pain and pain is love.
I apologize for my rant on an off topic issue!!! That annoys me sooooo much when other people do that!!! I hope we can cope with Almunia back in goal. He did well on tuesday!!! Mannone may get his chance next year if Almunia, or Fabianski leave due to lack of playing time. Then Mannone could be the back-up and a very competent one at that.
Our only issue is that our starters can not stay fit to save their lives. I don’t get it at all. We have good back ups but no team will win trophies with their backups playing 40 percent of the games. In my opinion, our starting 11 is the best in the Prem by a mile and only bettered by Barcelona in world football. We all have to realize which most of us have, RVP is a world class striker which you must have to win trophies (tell me the last team that has won a trophy without one), but he is injured so much, at the end of the day he is only getting you 10 to 13 goals a season. The only other issue with our team to me is having a top class winger that can link up play but still take on players which most of us have been rooting for Hazard forever now lol. The other thing is a lack of a quality depth at Defensive mid. We simply can’t tackle in the midfield if Song is not there. Overall Wenger is brilliant and we are so close to it and on a budget which makes it amazing.
Spot on again Shane.
fabianski and the young pole are good YOUNG keepers no doubt but do they have the ability to communicate EFFECTIVELY with the defenders resulting in blunders etc. thats the MAIN DIFFERNCE between a world class keeper and kids….its not about reflexes..its about POSITIONING AND MANAGING YOUR DEFENSE EFFECTIVELY…and this comes with age and world class exposure…neither one of them has any….sigh…
And neither will get any unless we play them.
It is difficult to succeed when your captain wants to leave the club. Maybe we should either pay him more and get a longterm commitment or sell him and buy a centerback and some more young guys.
Malaysian
Shit happens. Szczesny is 20 and starting for a team that regularly plays in Europe. He’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure goalkeeping is the position that is MOST improved from last season. All season long we’ve been begging for other positions, have you noticed how much the clamoring for a new goalkeeper have died down?
Anyway, right now I’m worried about the situation in which we’ll have Mannone or god forbid Shea or someone in goal. Manuel took some brutal hits yesterday…
I find it harsh to gang up on Sczczesny, luckily the media haven’t made a big deal.
I’ve seen Joe Hart make a couple of big blunders this year yet everyone considers him one of the best keepers about (he is pretty brilliant).
If Almunia can play like he did up to the end of the season then good on him… but I doubt he can. Yet again he put in one of his best performances in a game which we didn’t win.
I kind of agree somewhat with what Milo said. I to have thought we should cash in, mainly because i dont feel he is a natural attacking mid. I’d prefer someone of the Nasri ilk, who has a better dribbling ability, more trickery and better pass. Cesc is a class act but i feel he is more suited to playing centre mid a bit like Jack. Even Barca have said that is where they’d like to play him. Really dont think it will be massive problem if he goes, but again it needs to be on current value not what other teams want to give
sorry i meant better pace
I’d like to keep Cesc until the end of 2012.
The team seems almost close to perfect at the moment and Wilshere is still maturing.
By the end of 2012 Cesc will still have 3 seasons left on his contract so we can still get a good fee.
By that point Wilshere should’ve hopefully improved more, Ramsey should be finding his feet and Song will hopefully have a challenger with the likes of Bartley, Frimpong or Coquelin.
Throw in the fact Lansbury could finally be ready as could JET and everything is lip smackingly fantastic.
Last season was the only season where the players we lost were not major. If we can keep that for one more season and bring in some quality we’ll be laughing.
@shane – finally someone living in reality and not blowing things out of proportion. Ok we lost to Barcelona who I don’t think are the most exciting team I’ve ever seen but they have mastered beating the offside trap and that’s their key,they keep the ball alot but it doesn’t really go very far,it’s all about keeping and moving it till someone in the middle is open,then you’ll find pedro or villa etc hovering offside till the last second before returning onside in queue with the ball over the top,very hard to stop. I do wondr how good they’d be if they returned to the old rules where if your offside your offside. Needless to say but cesc didn’t play too well but not many did,he’s being made a scapegoat and to say he shouldve been sold long before and he’s not offered anything this season in ludicrous,people that say that clearly never go to games because for me he’s been brilliant and we need him badly at the moment. What we miss most is an outlet in walcotts form,when he’s missing we suffer for me,we need a Walcott alternative.
It is weird because Barcelona individually are not better then us except for Messi. It all comes down to off the ball movement. Barcelona allows have several players showing for the ball immediately where as we often leave the guy on the ball stranded and just hope he beats the players. Watch Nasri and you will see this. Now of course other things go into it all. I don’t believe an English team could play this way because of how physically enduring the Prem is. We simply don’t have the energy to do that this late in the season. The other thing is, Barcelona style is the exact reason we dominate the late stages verse them. They play such high pressure that they wear themselves out which is exactly why Wenger said we would have won if RVP did not get sent off.
On the other 2 subjects.
FABREGAS—
It is not as simple as just selling him. We do not know everything involved in the situation. The other thing to remember is Barcelona are offering no where near his value.
On Szczesny–
Not sure why everyone is jumping down the guys throat. He has done well especially for his age. He has made very little mistakes and pulled off some top saves. Remember we are on a 11 game undefeated streak in the league and we beat Barcelona with him in goal. As for the Birmingham game. That mistake was clearly Koscielny’s fault. He should have just left it. It was a simple ball. The other goal was Koscielny’s fault as well. (I like Kosc tho lol) He got beat to the first header and there is nothing you can do with a 6’8 player 5 yards from the goal and he is between you and the ball.
I am a huge Szczesny fan and I don’t know why people are after him at all!! He’s made one big mistake in the time he has been playing and that is it!! He’s only 20 and will keep improving. We don’t need another keeper at all. I still say that if Barca offer us 50 million for Cesc, we should take it. Maybe even 45 million. It’s gonna be hard to demand more when the guy is always fucking injured or not playing as he should be playing right???
I havnt heard of that type of injury before .Could you elaborate please Milo…
Cesc had his hamstring done on 15 mins during Barcelona match and he carry on till around 60 mins. Last night match shows few things which kind of confirm what I saw.
1) Fabregas should leave the field as not to aggregate his problem. But you can see nobody can step up to his position as well as unique visions. Perhaps Ramsey can thread a pass or have his vision…I’m not sure and perhaps someone can help to answer this concern? Anyhow Ramsey was not enter for this competition.
2) Rosicky and Diaby shows that one had not been on-form for a few years now and another really lacking the fighting spirit to win back lost possesions or kept a ball to look for passing channel. Why Wenger still insist to stick to both I had no clue and frankly I was frustrated to see them on the field.
3) Bednter had only loud mouth and when the real big match call upon to show his real worth, he proved that he is nor world class striker but really good enough player which he had not put into more hard work shift to play in the next higher level. It is my personal opinion.
4) Our goalkeeper is not a big issues as what the pundits want to make us believed.
I personally think cesc is the best centre midfielder in the world but i don’t think he’d start for barca because he is of a different style. Wilshere is alot more like a barca style player than cesc is.
It seems our injury problems are worse than seems,
I think there will be people out there blaming Wenger for not buying 4 World Class players in each position so if they are all injured we have cover.
Its just plain bad luck, which seems to follow our team around.
J is there any truth in the rumours, about us signing the Le Havre kid Benjamin Mendy
Does anyone know how Bartley did agapmst PSV Eindhoven in the Europa League??? Did he even play??? I saw his match, where he scored against St. Mirren and I was very impressed!!!
Didn’t watch it but he did play the whole match I think.It was just one those games where rangers defend the whole match.
I reckon we will loan Chris Kirkland. No-one will let us get one of their first 2 choice keepers to come sit on out bench. Also he nearly went to Cardiff last month but it fell thru and he is experienced.
He is thinking of a loan move as he put it recently.
Hope he brings someone to suit the needs of the team and especially the fans like us.
Can we go a game without a starter getting injured…
I think that Alex Manninger Would be à good choice to loan. Hes done Well in italy
JS
Any news on a possible Bertley recall after Djourou’s injury?
Thanks
We need Bartley back now!!!
Silva is left out again from Levante squad. could he be so lazy, that he doesnt even make to be on the bench? i know its too early to say, but it looks like he is wasting his potential (and the clubs money). in that age a great attitude worth more than the talent. (sorry for my english)
Bartley played really well against psv and is starting again today.
highlights of feyenoord game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GXNs63roYQ
holy moley!! Miaychi is soooo fast.. its simply amazing. And his close control running with the ball that those speeds? That’s just crazy.. he made the defenders look like they were running in slow motion! Definitely one to watch in the near future…
Sanderson, on safari or something? No new posts.