Left-back worries + Jack Wilshere leaves for Norwich

Morning all.

The players had a day off yesterday, and will return to London Colney today to begin preparations for Sunday’s game against Liverpool. Thus far we haven’t heard anything solid about Riccardo Calafiori, although I saw some second hand reports from the Italian press about how there’s a ‘fear’ he has suffered some ligament damage.

I don’t think that’s out of the ordinary. I feared it when I saw it happen. I’m most of you feared it too. And still do. It’s about what the results of the scans say, so let’s keep everything crossed it’s not a serious problem. As it stands though, we have a big worry about him; we’re unsure if Jurrien Timber can make Sunday (although he’s likely to be needed on the other side if fit because of William Saliba’s suspension); Takehiro Tomiyasu is out; Oleksandr Zinchenko was deemed not ready to play 20 minutes the other night so I can’t imagine there’s any way he’s ready to start a game where he’ll be playing against Mo Salah; so it could be a toss-up between Jakub Kiwior and Myles Lewis-Skelly for Sunday.

That’ll certainly be an interesting one for Mikel Arteta to consider. My guess, if it comes down to it, is that he’d go with the experienced option, because that’s what he tends to do. Obviously Kiwior made a bad mistake against Bournemouth, but it’s not which which needs a huge amount of analysis. He’ll know fine well he should have done better, and to be fair, the Polish international had a run of games at left-back last season which included a 3-1 home win over Liverpool. In the 9 games he played there from January to April, we won 8 and drew just one, which was the 0-0 away at Man City.

Perhaps though, it’s easier to accommodate him in that position when the team is in a good run of form. You have to acknowledge he was part of that, but in that run we had players like Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard available and contributing in a big way. We had two 5-0 wins, two 6-0 wins, a 4-1 win over Newcastle and the team had fully clicked after that disappointing spell in late December. Now, it’s fair to say things aren’t as fluent, we don’t know yet if Saka will be fit (despite some positive noises around his availability for Sunday), and it sounds as if the captain is still some way from his return after that ankle injury.

Anyway, it’s something else for the manager to think about before a game which feels really, really important in terms of our season. It’s one that could spark us back into ‘life’, if that’s the right way of putting it, and when you look at the fixture list and consecutive away games against Newcastle, Inter, and Chelsea, it feels like something we absolutely need because the schedule is very testing indeed. Let’s see what transpires over the next couple of days in terms of fitness.

Elsewhere, Jack Wilshere’s departure from the club was announced yesterday as he left his position as Head Coach of the U18s, so join Norwich City as a first team coach. To me that’s a perfectly normal and understandable move for him to make. He’s clearly got ambitions in coaching/management, so taking a job at a more senior level makes sense. He had been linked with jobs at Colorado Rapids and Aberdeen, but will join a side who will have ambitions of promotion to the Premier League from the Championship.

I have been a bit flummoxed at some of the reaction to it though, particularly in relation to families of young players using the press to make their displeasure about this known. First, Arsenal shouldn’t stand in the way of Jack Wilshere’s career for any kid, nor would they. Also, managerial/coaching change is a fact of life in football. Players need to get used it to it, and while I completely understand a player having a connection with a particular coach, their ‘job’ is at the club.

For example, Freddie Ljungberg played a key role in the development of Bukayo Saka when he was in charge of Arsenal’s U15s. Did we hear anything about how unhappy Saka was when Freddie left to be assistant coach at Wolfsburg under former Academy head Andries Jonker? Of course we didn’t, because it’s not normal or right for any player of that age to do it. You would have to think carefully about the motivations of anyone who go down that particular road.

The final thing to point out it is that a young coach leaving a club doesn’t completely preclude their return. Freddie came back to look after the U23s, our current manager left to coach at Man City before he took the big job, so it’s not impossible that if things go well for Jack Wilshere his Arsenal journey could continue down the line somewhere. So, let’s wish him the best of luck at Norwich, and his replacement has been made already with former Arsenal youth player Adam Birchall moving up from the U17s.

Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning. Have a good one.