It was the same old story for the Gunners in the first half of their last English Premier League match but all that changed in the second half when the team came out firing all cylinders on Monday night. Arsenal’s interim manager will hope that the win is enough confidence boost for his boys when the face Standard Liege in the Europa League encounter today.
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Gabriel Martileni, Nicolas Pepe and captain, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were on target as Arsenal came from the dead to beat the hammers for only their second away win of the season.
Firstly, Dani Ceballos is still out and hopes to return to training in mid-December and Rob Holding is set to miss yet another two weeks with a bruise to his knee.
Shkodran Mustafi may not be an Arsenal favourite but having him fit will not subtract from the team but having picked up three bookings in the competition, he will be watching from the stands in the match against Liege this evening.
Hector Bellerin and Kieran Tierney both picked up injuries on Monday in the “Westham comeback” that has lifted spirits in the Gunners camp, it didn’t come at a cheap price. They will both be missing today’s outing.
Finally, Nicolas Pepe who completed the Arsenal comeback with his first EPL goal since making the switch to England last summer would be missing today’s action and former club captain Granit Xhaka has a concussion and will miss the two games coming up this week.
With several injury hits Freddie Lunjberg has opted to go with a young squad against Standard Liege this evening. It’s a wise move considering he cannot risk any more injuries with EPL matching coming fast and tick this holiday.
Ljungberg has this to say when asked about the injury situation in the team;
” Of course, it’s not good. We got one in the warm-up at West Ham and then another full back [got injured] in the game. But it’s just one of those freak things. One is to the head [Granit Xhaka] and one is a shoulder [Kieran Tierney] in a tackle. You can’t do much about it, but of course, it puts a strain on the squad. But that’s how it is.”