Arsenal have suffered yet another injury blow. French right-back Bacary Sagna has suffered a hamstring problem and is expected to be out for at least three weeks.
Sagna, whose future was well speculated in the media last season, because of contract problems, has been one of the consistent performers for the Gunners this season.
He already joins a long list of injuries at Arsenal, which should leave manager Arsene Wenger in some spot of bother. Therefore, missing Sagna is definitely a blow for the Gunners. Losing a top player through injury is always a blow, but the Gunners should cope with his void without much difficulty.
It is true that Wenger is missing too many players through injury but the comforting sign is none of them are defenders. Apart from Sagna, he has the full defensive unit at disposal.
The best part is Wenger doesn’t need to shuffle his defensive pack to replace Sagna. Wenger can easily use Carl Jenkinson, who is more than an able deputy of the Frenchman. Or else, he can use Laurent Koscielny as well, though I don’t think, it will be needed. As we have seen against Sunderland, Wenger was forced to deploy Sagna as centre-back – such problems won’t occur now hopefully. It is just a simple man-to-man replacement at the moment for one particular position.
Plus, most importantly, Sagna would not miss too many games through injury for Arsenal. If he gets fit within 3 weeks, as proposed, then he should return before the crunch Champions League tie against Borussia Dortmund. He will only the games against West Brom and Norwich.
Without disrespecting the opponents, one can easily say Arsenal defence should do just fine even without Sagna for this period. It also provides some game-time to Jenkinson, who is progressing with every single match he plays.
There is no doubt that Jenkinson has improved a lot in the last one year and whenever he has been asked to fill the void, the English defender didn’t disappoint. So, nothing to panic about!
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