Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain train alone

We knew after the Manchester City game that Ox was slightly hurt - at the time, Wenger said “days not weeks”, which hopefully meant “less than three weeks”. What that means in reality was made a little more clear today, as Ox and Theo Walcott, who picked up a “small” calf injury against West Brom, trained away from the first team.

Linguistically, I know what that means, but operationally, I’m not 100% sure - I get the image of Ox and Theo walking to training like this...

...and moping their way around the second-string set of cones, the ones that are all raggedy and look like they’ve been run over by several trucks. And of them using, like, six year old balls that are worn smooth and have been kicked so hard they’re lopsided.

Or it means that Wenger is super old school and has the misguided belief that calf injuries are actually contagious, and short a course of leeches and bloodletting, the two players should be kept apart from the healthy ones at all cost. Which seems...misguided.

But in the actual reality of the world, it probably means that they’re training with the reserves at a reduced intensity and pace as they get ready to return not for Palace on the 1st but for either Bournemouth on the 3rd or the FA Cup tie against Preston North End on the 7th.

I like my reality, because it’s funnier.