With a crunch match against Aston Villa to worry about, Arsenal’s high flying squad are starting to thin out a bit,
“I don’t know how long it will be for Cesc,” Wenger told Arsenal TV Online on Thursday afternoon. “We hope it will be very, very, very short maybe he’ll even be OK for Saturday. But the medical staff are not optimistic about that. The worst case for him realistically is 10 days.
“We have a slight chance to get Gael Clichy and Alexander Hleb back. Mathieu Flamini will be available. Of course Van Persie is still out.”
Cesc has been a revelation since arriving at the club not only for his warp-speed development into one of the best midfielders in the world but also his relative imperviousness to injury. But as the team relies so heavily on his ability to dictate tempo, this is really the first time this young squad will have to make do without him for an extended period of time.
Much was always made about whether Arsenal were a one man team during Henry’s days, something this current team is setting out to disprove. But since this squad is still young and growing, are they now even more reliant on Cesc to help keep things together than their French hitman?
Alternatively, Wenger may pull some 15 year old Italian out of his arse who’s even better.