12 first teamers injured, is this the worst it has ever been? (And who plays against WBA)

By Tony Attwood

Could this be the all-time injury record for Arsenal – or indeed any EPL club?  If you are a reader of the Arsenal History site you will know that we recently covered a game in the 1920s in which Arsenal were without 10 first teamers and ended up playing the goal keeper (with an injured wrist) at full back.

Anyway, here’s today’s run down

• Diaby – a chance of playing
• Fabregas – out for two or three weeks
• Vermaelen – out for another week or two
• Eboue – injured against the Totts
• Rosicky – picked up injury in Totts game
• Van Persie – still recovering
• Walcott – injured playing for England
• Ramsey – recovering from a Shawcross
• Gibbs – recovering from injury in Totts game
• Traore – injured but out on loan anyway
• Bendtner – injured playing for Denmark
• Frimpong – injured in training

So who is left?  Actually it shows a lot for the strength of the squad that we can take all that lot out and still make up a team for Saturday like this

Almunia

Sagna Squillaci Koscielny Clichy

Song

Nasri Wilshere

Chamakh Arshavin Vela

That’s not too bad.  But if anyone else gets a knock, what then?  Against the Extremely Tiny Totts on Tuesday we had

• Djourou – playing
• Denilson – playing
• Eastmond – on bench
• Jay Emmanuel-Thomas – on bench
• Lansbury – playing

So that looks like the bench.  Beyond that we have the guys who are in or around the reserves….

• Gilles Sunu – missing since playing in the European Final – but what a sensational talent.  Last time I mentioned him there were suggestions that he is on loan in France but there really is no reference to this on the Arsenal site nor any other site.
• Gavin Hoyte – plays for the reserves but I wonder if his time has gone
• Nordtveit – has not gone on loan, so could be a backup full back.
• Ignasi Miquel – a centre back, and we still have Djourou as back up so might not be needed
• Chuks Aneke – attacking midfielder, captain of the reserves
• Roarie Deacon – a winger who has come up through the academy.  Playing in the reserves but probably still a year away.
• Benik Afobe – a brilliant striking talent, but probably a year too soon for him – but he’s another kid who has come up through the reserves.

The player we can’t play is Wellington Silva, who is not allowed to play until January.

So, bare bones time.  But how about this.

Roberto Mancini has said that despite spending 83 trillion billion squilion pounds he only has “11 100% fit players” for the game against the KGB in Fulham tomorrow.

Ah, bless.

Cue press comments about a squad, “rocked by injury” , and “crisis”.  (How can you be rocked by injury.  I mean, I know about rock n roll, because I played in bands that did it, and these days I dance it, but “rocked by injury”.  It sounds like being “stuffed by lightening” or “defeated by penicillin”.

“I do not know what I am going to do just yet,” says the man with the money.  ” I will speak with Joleon and Jérôme, but if they are not available I am not sure. Maybe Boyata, but I am not sure.”

So I guess he is not sure.

According to the Guardian “Emmanuel Adebayor should be fit enough to make the bench”, and it is good to know that after his failure as a footballer he has turned to carpentry as a second career.  I am sure we all wish him well.

So there we are, or not as the case might be.

In other news it seems that the police have launched all out war on the Toppled Bollard and are stopping people from drinking outside the venue prior to games.   Since the Bollard (on the corner of Plimson Strasse and St Thomas’) only has three square inches of space inside, this makes it tough.  I understand that Billy the Dog has been having discussions with the forces of law and order, and is now “helping police with their enquiries”.

Last, a bit of a jolly for the Arsenal History research department. Much of Arsenal’s history is just written and re-written from a single source, and if that source gets the facts wrong, or misses a bit out, then every other web  site and publication does the same – generally copying the original word for word.

It takes a bit of work to discover where this has happened, but when we find one, it is great fun, proving everyone else wrong (even if it is just on a point of detail).

The Arsenal History site is running the story of the first ever team to play for Arsenal in the league – and in researching one of the players (William Jeffrey) we found just such a case.   He played for us in the first year of the club, and its an interesting tale.

It is a bit like researching Arsenal in 1910, but that of course, is another story.