Newcastle v Arsenal: the injuries, who returns; top and bottom of the league

 

 

 

By Bulldog Drummond

• Newcastle v Arsenal: Arsenal’s tactics working well; Chelsea go yellow bonkers
• Newcastle United v Arsenal: and again its the issue of the officials

In terms of injuries noted on Premier League Injuries Arsenal are now sitting on six…

Tomiyasu, Tierney and Calafiri are all seemingly completely ruled out while Odegaard is reckoned to have a 25% chance of playing, which means he might be on the bench and come on for the last 15 minutes if needed.  Ben White is rated the same way – a 25% chance of playing.

Gabriel dos Santos Magalhaes to give him his full name is given a 75% chance subject to a late fitness test.

Football.London suggest that Gabriel Magalhaes will be ok for the match having trained today and will play alongside Saliba, now back from suspension.   Ben White is said to be more of a doubt for the game.

Jurrien Timber will return to the left side of the backline having played as the right back against Preston. Ben White is doubtful for the clash with a knee injury so Thomas Partey could feature as Arsenal’s right back.

So the long and the short of it all is that it is possible that Partey will play at right-back, Merino will play alongside Declan Rice.  

Leandro Trossard could again play as the number 10 although Ethan Nwaneri could come on as a sub later on.  Saka will of course be on one wing and Gabriel Martinelli, now approach the form that he had last season, on the other.    That combination of two tricky wingers seems to be quite a lot for many teams to cope with when both are on form.  Quite simply they have no idea who to mark or where the ball will end up next.

Back with the injury news, the club worst off for injuries is Ipswich Town with ten men out while Manchester City and Crystal Palace are each on nine men on the list, Brighton and Wolverhampton Wanderers are on eight.  Unfortunately I don’t keep a tally week by week through the season but these numbers seem to be a lot higher than normal, to me.

At the other end of the injury table, Aston Villa have one injury, Chelsea and West Ham each have two.

The big issue is of course still the question of refereeing and at least the number of Arsenal fans who refuse to acknowledge there is something seriously wrong is going down.  If you haven’t seen this Facebook piece on the situation with PGMO then you might enjoy it.  It certainly tells it straight.

In terms of the league table figures however, Arsenal are the second highest scoring team in the league on 17 goals (something I have not heard mention very much if at all, especially in relation to the constant demands to buy a new centre forward – although quite where that would leave our existing top scorer I don’t know.)

Arsenal are fourth in the league in terms of defence, having conceded one more goal than Manchester City – and figures like these belie the notion of a club in crisis, or which has failed to make proper use of the transfer window.

But there is of course a real gap opening up in the League given that we still have, after nine games, three teams (Ipswich, Wolverhampton Wands and Southampton) who have each not won a match.

Last season the bottom four at this stage read

 

	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
17	Luton Town	9	1	2	6	8	17	-9	5
18	Burnley	9	1	1	7	7	23	-16	4
19	AFC Bournemouth	9	0	3	6	6	20	-14	3
20	Sheffield United	9	0	1	8	7	24	-17	1

 

So just two had not won anything after nine, and three of those four went down.   Bournemouth ended up 12th, 20 points clear of the 18th club.    So in relation to who goes down, I think we can quite possibly narrow it down to three from those four.