Injury Update: Diaby ‘a maybe’, Eduardo & Vela out 4 February, 2010

I’ve been waiting for an injury update since Monday and still nothing has come up on the Arsenal.com home page. However turn to our dedicated injury room and there’s a free video in there with an update ahead of the Chelsea game:

“Campbell is back in the squad. Diaby is not yet back in normal training. If all goes well, if he progresses very well, we’ll still have to wait until Saturday.

Eduardo is already ruled out of the Chelsea game.”

He went on to confirm Diaby as ‘a maybe’ for Sunday before updating us on some longer term injuries:

“[Djourou] Still two months. We have to be patient with him. He is working, progressing well, working well but he is not an immediate resource.

[van Persie] Rehabilitation is going well but I think before April would be a little bit premature.”

He also told us that Carlos Vela was out. I never knew he was injured to be honest I just thought he was out of favour; he hasn’t offered a lot when he’s been involved this season. It’s a shame because I thought he might make an impact. He still needs time.

Wenger also reminded us that we have Walcott in the squad. In another interview he’s told us to be patient with him again and insists if he has an injury free season ‘he will have a good end of season’.

Theo is a popular topic of conversation at the moment. Yesterday I linked to Gunnerblog’s article on him and if you haven’t read that it’ll still be up there. He’s had such bad luck with injuries this season, it’s been frustrating for the club to have such a stop-start season and also disruptive personally for his World Cup chances. I believe Wenger though, he hasn’t played much football this term and he needs to get a run of games together, he’s still a developing talent remember and you can’t expect him to come straight back with a bang. Give him time and I think he will produce.

I’m not saying by the end of the season he’s going to be the new Theirry Henry but I think his England chances are still in the balance if he can stay fit and get in the team from now until the end of the season. I don’t expect him to start on Sunday, it’s too much of a deep end to throw him into but just like last Sunday I expect him to come off the bench. He might not be able to string together a full good performance yet but he’s still capable at this raw stage of his comeback to do something dangerous, he just needs to try be less anonymous and get in the game.

So Diaby will have a late fitness test to see whether he can play. I don’t know when that video was recorded but I’m sure we’ll get another update on him later tonight or tomorrow. I really hope he makes it though, not just because he was in good form recently but Denilson looks clearly struggling at the moment. The Brazilian didn’t look so bad at the start of the season but he’s not playing well at all at the moment and any weak link will be exploited by Chelsea just as United did.

We need the type of player like Diaby at Chelsea. He’s strong, penetrative, reads the game and is a threat going forward. Lets hope he makes it.

And that’s all the news there really is at the moment. Really is worryingly quiet round here, I hope that means we’re in deep preparation to re-mount our title chase on Sunday. Speak to you tomorrow.