Team/injury news: Koscielny likely out, others face late tests

With the resumption of the Premier League comes the return of the weekly Arsene Wenger "who's knackered now?" interview. It's always fun to find out the night before the Big Game exactly who is and isn't going to be available, and if someone good is hurt, to spend 24 hours or so sitting frozen rigid with terror about who might replace him.

This week we start out with Laurent Koscielny (calf) and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (ankle), who will evidently not be available tomorrow. The horror.

Actually it may not be so bad, at least in the case of Koscielny. We all know that he was our best defender last season, but unlike the latter part of the year, we have healthy cover in Per Mertesacker and Johan Djourou. Hopefully this means that Sebastian Squillaci won't be making the team in any capacity.

The OC is a different story: even with the addition of Santi Cazorla, Arsenal are a bit thin at midfield right now. His wing play won't be missed, with all options ready to go, but with Alex Song's "little knock"/Barca tickets and Jack Wilshere's continuing absence and Tomas Rosicky's Euro 2012 injury, the available options in the middle of the park are Mikel Arteta (declared "fit and available" by Wenger), Cazorla (who played the full 90 minutes for Spain against Puerto Rico at midweek, for some god-awful reason), Abou Diaby (lol), Aaron Ramsey (who played in the Olympics and probably is not actually available) and Francis Coquelin. So yeah, that's a bit thin, even though we all think of our midfield as stacked.

Theo Walcott missed his England game with an injury, but Wenger believes "he should be OK to play." In further good news, Wilshere, Rosicky, and Bacary Sagna are all well on their way back, it would appear. Wenger says "they should all be available soon," which in this case is still about a month, but I'll take any good news right now. All three are in light training and running, so hopefully they won't see further setbacks.