Arsenal Injury Update: Little Bit Knocks

As we all know, Arsenal have a new...fitness guy?  Director of being in shape? Coordinator of muscle? Anyway, Shad Forsythe came in this summer with a brief to overhaul Arsenal's medical staff, training regimen, and fitness practices. Apparently, Forsythe started at the top of the head* and is working down**, because today's injury report is all about the lower parts of the body.

*Yes, I know it doesn't work that way
**Yes, I know Debuchy injured himself and nobody really caused it

First and foremost, the injury to Mathieu Debuchy did in fact require surgery; it's estimated he'll be out for three months.  There's nothing really new in that except the confirmation that it was an injury that required surgery; three months is what we heard as a what-if when the injury happens, so it's good it isn't any more severe than that.

The other broken body making news today is that of Nacho Monreal. Well, "broken" is a bit of an exaggeration, I guess - he's got an unspecified "back problem" that will apparently keep him out for four games. So, the threadbare Arsenal defense just gets threadbarer, but that particular dead horse has been beaten so much it stands up like a prize-winning meringue at this point.

On the Good News front, that second piece also indicates that, among the other injuries, Theo Walcott should be back in contention in mid-October; that's a little later than we'd hoped but I'd always rather err on the side of caution for these things.