A Little Clarity... but not a lot

Football365 | All The News | Football News | WENGER BOOSTED BY ROSICKY RETURN

So, in this article that features news about Rosicky returning is the news that Fab4 will not make it back for this weekend's match with Everton (although he will make it back for the following match with Bolton, not to be confused with yesterday's postponed match with Bolton which was already a make-up for a match that had to be rescheduled from earlier in the season...deep breath).

Where does that leave Arsenal? With the following players to contend for spots...

Denilson, Diaby, Ramsey, Nasri, Rosicky, Arshavin, and EdS

Here's a quick game of musical players as the above seven gentlemen vie for the six spots in front of the keeper and defence...

Arshavin - this is the easiest one, according to the article he is healthy so he will start.  Five spots left between six guys.

Denilson - again, taking this article at face value he is healthy and will start and most likely in Cesc's spot with some chance of him dropping back and playing a more holding role (think Michael Carrick or Gareth Barry rather than Alex Song or Claude Makelele).  Regardless of the role, he's in leaving four spots for five guys.

Diaby - Wenger has been talking him up as an attacking player rather than what looked to be his original intention of making him into "the next Vieira." That said, there really isn't a true holding midfielder available so someone will have to figure it out with Diaby and Denilson the two most likely.  My guess is that they will end up playing off of each other in the center of midfield alternating runs forward with more defensive postures.  Either way, much like Denilson, Diaby seems to have earned a de facto starting spot assuming he isn't injured.  Now at 3 spots left for 4 players.

Nasri - I'm counting down in terms of my level of confidence that a given player will play and Sami is next on my list under the assumption that someone has to at least play semi-wide and it isn't likely to be Arshavin who is tabbed as the nominal "target striker" leaving it most likely that Nasri will start either on the left or the right.  Assuming I'm correct so far that leaves 2 spots for 3 players (Rosicky, Ramsey, and EdS).

Ramsey - Here's where I start making some assumptions...I start with the fact that Ramsey's been playing very well and there's a need for someone who is willing to play out toward the right (I won't imply that he is either a winger or someone who tends to get very wide but we're a long way from the days of Ljungberg and Pires hanging out on the touchlines).  I'd say Ramsey is about 60% likely to start...

EdS - My guess is that EdS fills out the last spot in the starting group because really Arshavin isn't enough as the only out-and-out striker.  That said, I can't say I've really understood Wenger's use of him since RvP went down (unless he really hasn't been as healthy as advertised until the last couple of weeks and Wenger is trying to shield the Arsenal medical staff from even more criticism in which case it makes total sense).

Rosicky - Given the explanation that Rosicky keeps suffering these minor injuries due to his body "readjusting" to playing regularly (or maybe it should be "adjusting" since I don't recall him being consistently healthy, well, ever).  In a sane world, this would mean Rosicky would be the first midfielder/attacker off the bench and play no more than 20 minutes for the next couple of weeks however, Wenger can never be trusted to do the right thing with players returning from injury so there is still a reasonable chance that Wenger throws the analysis above into chaos by starting Rosicky and benching Ramsey or EdS or Nasri.

So, I don't know if I've really helped or not with my little theoretical game of musical chairs but it helped me sort through the probabilities associated with picking Arsenal players for this weekend.

With any luck it helped you too.

See you tomorrow for Injuries and Suspensions.

Cheers - Neal

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:41 AM

    "Wenger can never be trusted to do the right thing with players returning from injury..."

    Always True.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:36 AM

    On a side issue, with this season's truncated schedule(EPL), it did seemed to me that alot of players going to be A) injuried easier B)more squad players having more games , especially when there are postponed games/replays/ANC to be had in this season. And playing on those slippery ground may be an additional hazard. With the additional bad weather(plenty snow)/ wage issue(!)/ World Cup looming , the mental aspect of a player will be tested even more( no shopping with WAG due weather and/or pay), away from family(blah blah blah). This is Magical Stuff that a season should have! the past few had been as boring as watching a goldfish in a bowl. This is IT!

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  3. So the news is in for cancelled games already...

    http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_5843077,00.html

    I'm re-adjusting at the last possible second...this could mean me getting up at 6am to check out the news (EST). Oh well.

    ReplyDelete