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Arsene Wenger reveals fresh injury worry for Arsenal

By on August 22, 2016
Laurent-Koscielny arsenal

Image credit: Express

Arsene Wenger has revealed that Laurent Koscielny was almost forced to miss Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Leicester City after suffering a back injury in training.

Koscielny missed our opening weekend defeat at home to Liverpool as he’d only been in training for less than a week prior to the game at the Emirates last weekend.

After getting another full weeks training under his belt, Wenger recalled the French international for our trip to the King Power and Koscielny put in an outstanding performance to help secure a 0-0 draw.

However, the boss has revealed that the 30-year-old was close to missing the game after aggravating a long-standing back problem in training on Friday and Polish youngster Krystian Bielik was taken to Leicester in-case Koscielny was ruled out.

Thankfully Kos declared himself fit on Saturday and Arsene says the defender showed his bravery by playing through the pain barrier.

Wenger is quoted as saying by the Mirror.

“Koscielny had a big back problem on Friday and he had to come out of the training.

“We went to Leicester with 19 players and he decided in the morning he could play and I think it saved us this point. We thought at some stage he would not play but he was very brave and he is brave.

“He was not ready last week. He had only four days’ training and that is too short after having four weeks off.

“I did think if I should have taken a gamble last week or not, but because we had lost already two players, then if I lost another one for two or three months we have a massive problem.

“We looked a different team and he gave us stability and against a team that attacks very well he was very important.”

Thank god Koscielny was able to play as there is virtually no chance we’d have come away with anything from the King Power without him. He was a rock at the back and made a huge difference from the Liverpool game while Rob Holding also looked far more assured with an experienced defender alongside him.

Arsene didn’t indicate whether Koscielny had suffered any reaction to playing on Saturday and it will be a concern as his back has given him problems for some time. But let’s hope he came through the game unscathed as we desperately need him to play at Watford this weekend.