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Arsenal Injury News: Latest On Walcott, Podolski & Ramsey

By on November 19, 2013

Arsenal have received a huge injury boost ahead of the Southampton game with widespread reports claiming that Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey will be fit to play.

Ramsey missed Wales’ friendly against Finland on Friday night with a hamstring problem and it was feared he could be set for a spell on the sidelines.  However, the clubs medical team have given him the all-clear to resume full training and he’s now expected to be in the squad to take on the high-flying Saints on Saturday.

Walcott is also set to make his first appearance in over six weeks after he returning to full training on Monday. The winger hasn’t featured since late September after injuring his abdomen in the warm up prior to the Stoke game, but is now back in contention to face his former club.

There is also further good news with Lukas Podolski expected to return to first team action at the end of the month. The German hasn’t played since ripping his hamstring to pieces against Fenerbache at the end of August, so his return along with Theo’s will come as a welcome boost.

Because we’re sitting pretty at the top of the league many people forget the attacking threats we’ve been playing without for much of the season. The contribution of Walcott and Podolski last year was HUGE and we’ve played practically the entire campaign without either of them.

Many opposing fans shrug off the fact we’ve been without the duo this season because they simply don’t appreciate what they bring in terms of end product. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat in the pub trying to explain to my non-Arsenal supporting friends how important the likes of Walcott is to us.

Thankfully, I’ve come across a useful website created by https://www.bwin.com that allows us to assess the precise impact individual players have on a teams performance. League Of Your Own lets you create hypothetical scenarios using a number of different factors to show what the league table could look like if certain filters were applied.

For example, I filtered out the goals and assists from Walcott and Podolski last year and found that Arsenal would have dropped down seven places to 11th in the table had the duo not been available. We often mock Spurs for being a one-man team last year and say they would have been relegated without Bale. However, League Of Your Own shows that our rivals would only have dropped six places without the Welshman’s contribution last season. So in effect, we were more reliant on Walcott and Podolski than they were on Bale.

Obviously this is all hypothetical as other players would have played instead of Walcott or Poldi, but you get what I’m trying to say. They were both extremely important players for us offensively last year and we’re going to be a far more dangerous unit now they are coming back in to the squad.

Say what you like about them, but there’s no denying the duo will bring more goals and assists to this already exciting Arsenal team during the second half of the season.

How pleased are you to have Walcott and Podolski coming back to fitness?

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