Such a wild, wtf just happened moment, for Calafiori to get injured against France yesterday. Studs into his calf, ouch.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Such a wild, wtf just happened moment, for Calafiori to get injured against France yesterday. Studs into his calf, ouch.
Hope that was a straight red... Dangerous tackle on calafiori.
What a disaster. Partey, Havertz and Nwaneri midfield coming up?
These were just Friendly's weren't they? So injuries in meaningless games.
Ødegaard out for weeks and we have a tough run coming up. **** internationals.
Our EPL ambitions are cooked a few weeks into the season.
ESR would have been handy right about now. Another wide player / forward would have been handy too.
I knew we had ended the transfer window with a weaker squad than we started, I just can’t believe it has been exposed this badly before the first post window match.
I assumed we would skate through until the Xmas fixture pile before we really felt it.
3 losses in a row looks feasibleI don’t feel Arsenal’s squad is weaker necessarily. In trimming down the squad numbers, quality over quantity, I feel we’ve left ourselves exposed to the flawed logic underpinning this.
Arsenal prioritise signing players with versatility. Players who can cover across multiple positions. ie, Tomiyasu can play across the back 4. Jesus the front the 3. Trossard the flanks or as a 9. Havertz can be deployed as a 9, a 10 or an 8. Rice a 6 or an 8 etc etc.
So with a fully fit an available squad, that list of 17-18 players looks fantastic on paper. However the flaw comes when someone like Jesus is out. That’s cover in 3 positions, and all of a sudden we’ve called upon Nelson or Nketiah from the bench in the past.
The double injury to Saliba and then Tomiyasu 2 seasons ago was the hammer blow, all of a sudden we called upon Holding and the title challenge fell away from there.
In letting senior figures like ESR and Vieira go this summer, Arsenal has rolled the dice on Odeegard replicating his durability and fitness from last year. The Merino injury is just damn unlucky really, what can you do. Gabriel fell on him in a duel in training and he breaks his shoulder, that’s just bad luck. Similar to Timber doing an ACL last year opening day, you can’t mitigate for that unfortunately.
However Arsenal have chosen to trim down the squad numbers and herein lies the risk of that logic. We’ve had a number of players out at the same time which leaves the squad very light in key areas.
On that whiteboard in Edu’s office, Merino was likely there was an alternative at right 8. With Nwaneri probably 3rd in line. All of a sudden, through bad luck and a Rice red card, there’s a midfield conundrum for the NLD.
They made this decision intentionally with internal options in mind for such an eventuality, so I’m curious to see what happens. 3 away trips in a row now, NLD followed by Atalanta (on a Thursday night) with City to follow 3 days later.
Formation change of shape I believe will happen this weekend.
3 losses in a row looks feasible
Ty glen, you have given me confidence.Possible yes, however it’s perhaps not as bad a situation as previously. We’re not now calling upon Cedric, Holding, Nketiah, Elneny etc (with respect to them). Despite the absences Arsenal still have excellent options. Jorginho, Trossard, Havertz can be deployed accordingly, there’s also Sterling in the squad now.
Rice will be back for Atalanta and then City. It’s not easy however winning shit rarely is. This is the kind of stuff during a season that needs to be navigated accordingly.