Hello everyone.
Tomorrow we play against WBA on their turf in what will be the last game before the international break. The last international break this season. Good. If our players return from it unscathed, the only injures they'll sustain this year will be in their club matches. Something tells me these won't be as severe and lasting as the ones they can pick up on international duty.
Sagna, however, won't have the luxury of getting his leg snapped in two during the next fourteen days, seeing as he pulled his hamstring against Napoli. The Frenchman will remain sidelined for two to three weeks, but still has a good chance to play in our first game after the Interlull (is it against Norwich?)
Anyway, we should be able to cope with Sagna loss for now (with Jenkinson getting ready to join the action). Certainly we can go one game without the French international, so nothing to worry about.
Another piece of bad news concerns Cazorla. Despite his claims, that he'll be in contention for Sunday, he won't. The manager flat-out denied Cazorla`s availability, so what we have for now, we hold. Whether Arsene is playing mind games with Del Bosque remains to be seen, but I'd back our manager if he does. Even had the Spaniard been fully ready, I would not have risked him. Fresh from injury, that has kept him out for three weeks, in for a flight and a late cameo, which will probably only aggravate his injury (it doesn't have to, but it will). Not a good prospect. Spain will manage without him, but we will be hard pressed, should we lose Cazorla again. So he should stay put. Better miss an encounter against WBA now, than the slew of important games after the break.
Everyone else, though, should be gunned and ready for our trip to the Hawthorns. They are a tricky opponent, surely, but we've dispatched trickier ones this season. Napoli game looks like our best yet, so I see no reason, why we shouldn't take all the three points on Sunday. Ozil has opened his scoring account, Giroud rediscovered his earlier form, Ramsey is, well, Ramsey. At his best.
I'm also interested, whether Gnabry will start. Rosicky`s return gave us an option on the flanks, but Gnabry is, without doubt, more suited to this position. He's also in good form, something you can't say about Rosicky for now. So I think the German needs to play.
In other news, Whilshere was spotted having a smoke yesterday. All kinds of theories and statements have been thrown around since then, but it's not the fact itself (smoking) that makes my blood boil. I'm pretty sure it was a prank of some kind, but even if it wasn't, I'm outraged at how little privacy footballers get. I do get they are public figures, maybe role models, but the fact, that someone managed to take a shot of Whilshere having a smoke, cause they could only operate at very short notice, disgusts me.
After all, Jack is 20 years old (maybe even 19). Give the guy a rest, a moment's peace, some privacy. Don't hold your cameras at the ready, when he pops up at the nearest nightclub. The picture without a context can give a wrong impression, and I think that's exactly what's happening now.
Other than that, not much going on, so I'll leave it at that. Here's hoping for three points tomorrow, so we'll go into the break on a high.
Until later