According to the official site, Arsenal's left back Kieran Gibbs has returned to full training today for the first time in months. Here's what Arsène Wenger had to say:

"He had a normal training session yesterday," confirmed Arsène Wenger on Tuesday morning.

"He is still short to play now but it is good news to have him back and I think one or two more weeks practice will get him back to being available again. That is very positive."

This is after surgery on "both groins" (is that...there are two? I'm so naive), so we'll see. For now, the news that Gibbs could theoretically be ready to go by the Totttenham match on February 26th is encouraging. He could maybe even be ready for Milan or Arsenal's cup tie in the northeast, but given my druthers, I'd rather make sure he is fully ready before throwing him and his dodgy groins into the fire.

At any rate, welcome back, Kieran.

Arsène Wenger has ruled out signing a left back on loan or on a permanent basis today in his press conference.

Arsenal "transfer rumors": there aren't any.

Here's what the boss had to say:

"Gibbs is back in full training on Monday, and Vermaelen can [also] play left back and he is fit. [Andre] Santos will be fit in March," he said.

"Three left backs, plus Sagna - who can play there - is four. We are not [shopping for a] left back."

More after the jump:

Continue reading this post »

Arsenal may be without the services of midfielder Jack Wilshere for a bit longer than anticipated, as the former Medical Miracle felt a pain in his ankle whilst running yesterday, according to Arsène Wenger:

"He had a little setback. We are investigating it at the moment and don't know how bad it is," Wenger said. "He sees a specialist today. He has pain again in his ankle. We stopped him straight away. He did it running."

At this point, there is no prognosis, but the expected return to training in a couple of weeks is off the table, most likely. More after the jump:

Continue reading this post »

Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Sunday's likely team against Manchester United is very likely to be worse than the team that lost 8-2, as both Mikel Arteta and Thomas Vermaelen will not recover from calf injuries in time. Tomas Rosicky and Ignasi Miquel will start in their place, with the latter making only his second Premier League start. Against Nani.

Continue reading this post »

Arsenal announced this morning that all-time leading goalscorer for the club and current New York Red Bulls man Thierry Henry has returned to the club on a two-month loan deal, effective immediately. Henry will wear the number 12 shirt, as he did throughout his illustrious career for France.

Brought on as cover after the departures of Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh to the African Cup of Nations, Henry will be with the club until mid-February, and there's a possibility that the loan could be extended a short time to the end of February (which would potentially allow Henry to play against Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates Stadium).

Henry is eligible to feature immediately, and manager Arsene Wenger said this morning that he will almost definitely participate in some way in the FA Cup match on Monday against Leeds United. Wenger didn't say whether Henry was likely to start or be a potential substitute.

We'll likely be covering this in more detail in the near future (this is a quick hit I'm doing between meetings at work), but i, for one, am very excited by this. Thierry Henry from 2004 is not walking through that door, and anyone expecting the mercurial presence we remember from DVDs and YouTube videos is mad. But he has bags of quality even at 34, and I am certain that he will help this team.

The King is back.

In this morning's press conference, Arsene Wenger confirmed Thierry Henry will return to Arsenal on a two month loan, while Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh are unavailable due to the African Cup of Nations. Henry, 34, is Arsenal's all-time top scorer, and while a move like this has a degree of sentimentality (who here can't grin at the fact that Henry could play against Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur), Arsene Wenger believes that Henry can help Arsenal deal with the absence of the aforementioned players.

Continue reading this post »

Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger has ruled out any transfers at the center back position during the January window, he said during his press conference today:

"I have had no contact [with Bolton about Cahill]," Wenger said.

"We have plenty of centre backs, fortunately they can play on the flanks too as they are at the moment. We are not looking for any centre backs. No chance."

It's perhaps a little surprising that people are still asking about purchases for the center of defense, as so far this year, just about anyone paired with Thomas Vermaelen in the center (particularly Laurent Koscielny) has looked solid. With those two, Per Mertesacker, and Johan Djourou back there, Arsenal have a good mixture of talent and experience, and despite individual weaknesses (except for Vermaelen, of course, who knows no weakness or defect), the unit as a whole has come together well.

Full back, of course, is a little thin at the moment. Wenger only wants a short-term solution there, if any (after the jump):

Continue reading this post »

The Olympiakos squad selection crisis deepens, as the club have announced that Andre Santos will miss at least three months with an ankle injury. The ligament damage he suffered in Arsenal's final (completely meaningless) Champions League match will require surgery to fully heal. This is a massive blow, as Santos had been playing well enough to likely keep his first-team place even after Kieran Gibbs returns from his injury (which he hopes will heal in time to return by the end of December). Also, obviously, there's the fact that Gibbs, our only other real left back, is (as I mentioned) currently injured, and gets hurt at the drop of a hat.

So, yeah, I'm pretty upset that Santos played in a game that held no meaning to Arsenal. I saw some fans on Twitter complaining about us and other teams resting players in their last group stage matches, and Andre Santos is a classic case study in why you do what they (and we, kind of) did. Because Santos played in a match that didn't matter to us, he's out until spring, and our chances at advancing in the Champions League and FA Cup and placing top four in the Premier League are damaged. No offense, but I really don't care who else makes it out of our group. I doubt fans of Bayern Munich, or any other team in the Champions League, do either. I can almost guarantee that the clubs themselves are fully self-interested as well. There is no reason for a football club to play first-team players if it has already won its group. If Marseille and Dortmund wanted in the next round, they could have done that by managing more than two cumulative points against us. This is the reward for winning the group early: you don't have to try in your last game. For some reason we decided to eschew that reward, and now there's this.

So now we must continue to play our center-backs as full-backs for the foreseeable future, and probably occasionally to spell Gibbs even after/if he comes back healthy. Arsene Wenger has said that we may look into signing a full-back in January, according to Jamie Sanderson, and I would say that's a necessary course of action. Playing Thomas Vermaelen out of position, in every game for months, is an untenable situation. I'm not totally confident in Ignasi Miquel's ability to hang with top-flight competition week in and week out, so the only option really is to buy in the winter window (though Miquel could certainly prove me wrong). There have been legitimate links to Jan Vertonghen of Ajax, who has a few traits that make him attractive. He's versatile - he can play left back and in the center of the defense, as well as in a defensive midfield role, so he could really be cover for all of our center backs, a starting/cover left back, and cover for Alex Song as well. Also he's a former club teammate and international compatriot of Vermaelen's, and the two are supposedly friends.