Some good news from Arteta on the injury front – Suburban Gooners

The good news from yesterday’s press conference therefore appears to be that despite his midweek injury against Bayern, Leo appears fit, as Mikel confirmed during his pre-Chelsea chat with the assembled media. It’s a relief. Considering how impressive he has been for us this season, losing him at a time when his form requires him to really start against this reprehensible football club on Sunday, is a big plus for us.

Arteta would not be keen on Havertz and Gyokeres, saying they are both close and although Nagelsmann’s comments last week suggested Havertz would probably be someone closer to Christmas playing for us, we are still a little more in the dark about Big Vik. I think it’s weird; We weren’t really told anything other than he suffered a muscle injury that was reported as a hamstring strain. A quick Google tells you that it takes anywhere from a few days to a few months for a complete tear. We know it wasn’t a tear, it clearly wasn’t what they call a “grade 1” because it only takes a few days, a week or two. But there’s no mention of a “tear,” putting recovery between four and eight weeks. If we can assume it’s not a torn muscle and just a strain, then as of Sunday, Gyokeres has been out for essentially a month, as the Burnley game was on November 1st.

I hope he’s surely in contention for Sunday, but I find it interesting that no one asked (unless they did and it wasn’t picked up) about the two isolated players, because surely Big Vik is more likely to return sooner than Havertz? I would have hoped we could see him this weekend, but otherwise you were hoping we could see him on Wednesday against Brentford, weren’t you?

In the meantime, this could mean Mikel Merino returns to his attacking role again and Arteta was of course happy to give flowers to a guy who I think almost all of us now appreciate a lot more than we did a year or so ago. I remember this time last year thinking we had bought a pretty decent central midfielder who would be a backup if we needed him (and it turned out we really needed him). We ‘found’ ourselves an auxiliary centre-forward last season and now that he’s settled in, he acts as a fantastic backup to our injured players. And in the meantime we have changed our style of play and I have noticed that our Merino has also adapted, sometimes dropping to the right, sometimes moving closer to midfield, then rotating with either Trossard moving into the central space or Eze occupying the positions he scored his goals from last weekend.

If Merino plays tomorrow it will be interesting to see what Chelsea do, as I suspect they may have seen how Merino leaves these attacking spaces and could put someone on him to do some follow-up work. I’ll keep a slightly more tactical thought on how the match might play out tomorrow, but I think it will be a fascinating tactical chess match between two of Guardiola’s disciples.

There was a question asked about Gabby Jesus, who along with Nwaneri played in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Watford this week (must be pretty damn handy for shouting over a fence and seeing if the guys want a kick) and while Arteta isn’t wondering how soon he might be available, I suspect we might see him in a match squad or two in the coming weeks. If you remember what happened with Timber when he suffered his ACL, the club really took their time bringing him back and he only made his return in the final game of the season, a full 10 months after picking up the injury on the opening day against Forest. Gabby J is a few years older so healing will take longer, but he has completed 11 months now and so I think Arteta might be thinking about maybe an extra week of training before he goes for inclusion in the match day squad. He apparently came out of this friendly encounter unscathed, his legs will probably hurt for a few days, so who knows? Perhaps a cheeky midweek appearance for the subs against Brentford isn’t out of the question?

He was asked about Rice winning the Balon d’Or, which is the kind of question I hate, as well as the quality of Estevao, which of course he didn’t want to talk about specifically, but I wonder if we have a game plan for certain players, whether they play or not. For example, Maresca predictably said that Palmer was back in training, after saying he had “no chance” just over a week ago. He hasn’t played since September, so it’s a bit like Odegaard for us in that respect in that you wouldn’t think he could get a full 90 from Palmer, but is Arteta planning for Palmer from the start? Is he planning for Estevao from the start? Or the bench? We talk a lot about the immense depth of our squad – and it is – but Chelsea have a pretty solid squad too, having spent the best part of three years stockpiling every player they could get their dirty mitts on. If you take their attack for example, you have the two aforementioned players, but also Delap, Joao Pedro, Garnacho, as well as Gittens. They even gave games to Tyrique George, so it’s not like they had a “simple” team.

This is a challenge that Mikel will face tomorrow, but the good news is that we have seen how he can spot things and adapt to them in the game, evidenced by the second half against Bayern where we stepped up a gear and showed our power against the German champions. You get the sense that once the game gets going and the patterns of play start to take shape, we may have to see Arteta make similar tactical adjustments when he sees what Chelsea and Maresca are doing.

But, like I said, maybe that’s for tomorrow’s blog, so I’ll leave it for today and hope you have a great Saturday and maybe we can have another splendid day of hate watching like last Saturday.