Who will be back at the back? After the international break… « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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By Walter Broeckx

Who could be back after the international break? This is a very important question. Because we really should have a few players back ready to play by then. And this certainly goes for our central defenders. Of course we don’t know yet how many casualties we will have to face in the next 10 days. For those who believe in a God it is time to pray. For those who don’t believe it is time to… well why don’t we all pray for a good return of our players for this one?

Let us start with Squilacci. The most unliked maybe of them all but he should be fit by then. He was already fit before the Tottenham game but not match fit according to Wenger. So if nothing goes wrong he should be fine.

Another one is Koscielny. The most likely to take his place back and join a partner ship with Mertesacker. Koscielny was close to making it for the game against Tottenham but on Friday he couldn’t prove his fitness. But the fact that he was close to attempt to being fit should mean that he should be ready to play in 14 days. I think. I guess. I hope.

Another one that is suffering from injury and maybe also a loss of form in recent weeks is Johan Djourou. In case of emergency I think he also should be back after the international break.

Let us turn to the maybe most missed central defender in the last…year. Vermaelen. After missing last year with an injury nobody knew or found this time around the doctors have acted fast. So a little surgery from the first signs of trouble this time. On his press conference before the Tottenham game Wenger said it would take him a few weeks after the international break before Vermaelen would be back.

This lead to a lot of people saying that he has had a setback and that he would be out just like last season. Well Vermaelen has strongly denied all those things. On his twitter account he has said that his recovery is going to plan and that he didn’t have any setback at all.

And the best news was that yesterday he told that he had his first training outside today(=Monday) and that he had felt nothing. No pain, no trouble. Nothing at all. And that he felt great. No discomfort at all.

And Vermaelen was hoping to make a lot of progress this week. Will he be back after the break? I doubt it. I think Wenger and Arsenal will take no risk with Vermaelen as long as other players will be back to full fitness before Sunday 16 October. And yes let us take no risk with him. Just use Koscielny if he is fit or Djourou if Koscielny is not fit. But please let us take no risk with Vermaelen in the next weeks.

So if all goes well maybe we could see him back when we play Stoke in the EPL or maybe Bolton in the Carling Cup? I sure hope so because from that moment on it will mean that we have again a left footed central defender at our disposal. Something I really like a lot because it brings more balance to the defence when you can put a partnership on the field that is right and left footed.

I will not mention Miquel for the moment. Officially he is not a first team player yet even though he has played a few games this season due to the large number of injuries we have suffered in our defence. But I sure think he is close to being ready for the first team if needed. And as he is also a left footed player could be used as a back up for Vermaelen if Wenger wants to have a left footed central defender if Vermaelen needs a rest.

Having Koscielny and Vermaelen back after the break and at the end of the month will be very important. It will mean that we can play Song back to his midfield role where he will make us stronger. I don’t want to take anything away from Frimpong and Coquelin as I think they both have a lot of potential to play there in the future but we must give them time to develop. We surely mustn’t put too much pressure on those young players yet. Give them a game every now and then and certainly play them in the Carling cup. But let us not get them burned out by playing them too much now.

So getting our defenders back will be very important. And I think as things stand now they will not be playing for their national team so this looks promising for the moment.

The only problem remains our right back position. I think Jenkinson will get his baptism of continuing games now. But the question remains: do we have any back up for him? Can we rotate him with other players? Because if we play Jenkinson from now on for the next 3 months, this could kill him. I thought Coquelin played at right back for the reserves a few times, so maybe he could be another option to use. But otherwise I really don’t know who could fill the gap at right back for the moment.

So let us hope that Jenkinson stays fit for the next months because otherwise we really are in trouble at right back. That is if Coquelin could not fill that gap of course. Oh my God, could you ever imagine us missing Eboue?

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