Arsenal Injury Glory

In addition to Gallas and Ljungberg, Robin Van Persie, Alexander Hleb, Julio Baptista and Johan Djourou have all joined the injury list.

It's a serious problem for the Arse, because Arsene Wenger didn't start off this season having the biggest squad anyways.

Van Persie is top scorer, Hleb has been one of the most influential and important players this season, Gallas is a top, top class defender and Freddie is the longest serving player at the club, and very, very experiened. Julio Baptista has been showing tremendous signs of improvement - 6 goals in 2 Carling Cup games, and a very economical and important performance in his cameo against Bolton on Sunday. Djourou is backup to Senderos, and has put in some great performances this season.

Jeremie Aliadiere and Emmanuel Eboue were injured last week, but are fit again.

Hopefully Johan and Julio will be back for Wednesday, because their quality will be required to hold strong at home against Tottenham. Arsenal have the away goals advantage, but conceding one now would cause some serious flutters for the youngsters, so let's hope they can take things a step further than last time and get to the final.

The injury crisis is something that's potentially serious. Last season it damaged the flow of the team completely, and although the continuous injury ravages of the last year at Highbury can't be compared to this current crisis, the worry is that it will undo all the good work that this team has been doing. The run of results and performances has been excellent stretching back to that defeat by Fulham. Apart from the 1-0 loss away to Sheffield, we have been undefeated in 14 games in all competitions. The run reads like this: Played 15, Won 9, Drawn 5, Lost 1

Some of those have been "strategic" draws in the Champions League or first-leg matches in the Carling Cup. In the league, it read lie this: Played 10, Won 7, Drawn 2, Lost 1

The team is definitely on the up, but the injuries are seriously in danger of blunting this. Hleb is out for a whole month, and Van Persie is probably going to be out for close to 3 months. Big trouble. Gallas is yet to reappear. The only consolation is that Freddie will probably be back quite soon, but his form has been poor this year. I'd still pick him ahead of Theo Walcott who still lacks a lot of experience and probably is more useful as a sub coming on against tiring teams.

Anyways, i've forgotten what the basic point of this piece was. Yes, OK... Arsenal have lots of injuries. That's right.

So many injuries, that the majestically miserly Arsene Wenger has actually said he is considering buying someone before the transfer window closes, and he even went so far as to be self-analtyical and critical and say that he might go for a "panic buy"... a term he's often used loathfully in the past in refence to the cavalry of players coming in and out of England when the transfer window is about to close and people have run out of ideas.

Anyhow... let's see what happens. Hopefully Julio Baptista is declared fit, because he is getting better and better, and could have a real impact in the end to the season.