Wenger worries busy schedule and injuries will combine to unravel Arsenal’s season
Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud has been ruled out of tomorrow’s Premier League match against rivals Liverpool with a hamstring injury with manager Arsene Wenger fearing a tough schedule for the club over the next month could make him the first of many players to go down with injury.
Giroud, who has scored seven goals this season, was substituted in the second half of Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over West Ham United in the League Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday and will undergo scans today to assess the damage.
“It doesn’t look very good for him,” Wenger told reporters after the victory as the club reached the semi-final of a competition they have not won since 1993. “I think he’s out of Friday night. We have to wait. Nowadays you do the scan 48 hours after the injury. That will happen on Thursday, then we’ll have a precise kind of grade on what his hamstring is.
“When you listen to him, the pain is quite big, but the grade is not always linked with the intensity of the pain.” Midfielder Francis Coquelin was also substituted in the final stages of Tuesday’s match with a knock but Wenger expects the 26-year-old to be fit to face Liverpool, who are fourth in the table, one point and place above Wenger[‘s men.
Wenger had already been concerned about the hectic fixture list awaiting Arsenal over the next month, with the team playing four league games, starting with tomorrow, over the next 12 days. That is then followed by a FA Cup third-round match at Championship side Nottingham Forest, before they play three more league matches before the end of January.
With the two legs of the League Cup due to be played on the midweeks of January 9/10 and January 23/24, it is going to be a very busy time for Wenger and his troops. Wenger has been rotating his team between the Premier League, Europa League and League Cup this season and has bemoaned the lack of rest time his side has had relative to their recent opposition. He made 11 changes on Tuesday night for the triumph over West Ham, where Danny Welbeck scored the winner, and Wenger said he is worried about the period ahead.
“It is very demanding, especially because we already have a tough schedule behind us,” he said. “We have to sit down and analyse very well what we can do. What is very worrying in my job is when you start to lose players, like Giroud tonight.
“After, you cannot afford to lose another one. I have to look how I can manage the schedule.”
Wenger admitted he would have to look at which games he rested players in, and hinted he would have to make a judgment call on how much he prioritised the League Cup, despite the club’s lack of success in the tournament in recent years.
“When you look at our fixtures in January and February, you cannot imagine we will always play with the same players in every game,” he said.
“Will I change from Premier League game to Premier League or only in the Carabao Cup? I don’t know yet - I have to look at the fixtures to see what I do.”