Laurent Kocielny Injury Could be Detrimental to Arsenal

Stop me if this sounds familiar. Another Arsenal player has gone down for the count and the severity is yet unknown. For some reason, international break haunts the Gunners with a vengeance. Before matches even started, Mesut Ozil went down for what’s projected to be a three month absence.

Now Laurent Kocielny has been sent back with severe tendinitis in the all-important Achilles tendons.

The severity of Kocielny’s injury isn’t known yet, and this was a precautionary measure, but if it turns into anything it put’s Arsenal up a very long creek with no paddle and no boat either.

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The defensive cover at Arsenal is nonexistent, with Calum Chambers the sole representative, but with Mathieu Debuchy down, he has had to start at right back.

What’s that mean?

It means that if Kocielny can’t play, it falls to Issac Hayden, who, while promising, is still young, raw and not ready.

It all comes back full circle to Arsene Wenger refusing to replace Tomas Vermaelen. How nice would it be to be able to put a very capable Vermaelen in to give Kocielny a few added days rest? Or any adequate replacement. But unfortunately we don’t have that luxury. We have no alternative and any injury completely hampers Arsenal’s ability to compete.

All we can do is hope that the injury is nothing serious. Since it was precautionary, it’s unlikely that it will be but given Arsenal’s injury history it could turn into something really bad really fast, especially given Wenger’s inability to give the all important center-back a break.

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