Arsenal team news ahead of EFL Cup encounter versus Nottingham Forest

Following this weekend's victory away at Hull City, Arsene Wenger and the club have a quick turnaround as they prepare for tomorrow's EFL Cup match at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.

Earlier today, Wenger addressed the media and touched on the few key players who've missed time and their status for both tomorrow and the weekend.

on the latest team news… Everyone came out of the Hull game well. Giroud is still not available - we will see at the end of the week if he can join in [ahead of the Chelsea match].

on Gabriel… He has a chance to play against Forest.

on Carl Jenkinson…He is improving, he is not quite back in full training yet.

on Aaron Ramsey… He is still out - I don’t think he will be ready for the weekend either.

Tomorrow's match, in all reality, isn't nearly as important as this Saturday's league fixture that sees Chelsea visit The Emirates for very obvious reasons. With that in mind, I can see Wenger resting one of Laurent Koscielny or Shkodran Mustafi to allow Gabriel time to get back to full match fitness.

It's a little disheartening, though, to hear that Aaron Ramsey has still yet to recover in time for the crucial match this weekend. By Saturday it will have been five weeks since his injury in the opening match of the season versus Liverpool - a start of this that should have been delayed, as the manager has previously suggested - and to hear Wenger quickly rule him out another seven days at minimum is getting worrisome.

For many reasons stated here and elsewhere, it'd be nice to see what Ramsey can bring to a midfield that has Mesut Ozil and options such as Granit Xhaka and Mohamed Elneny at the manager's disposal.

I would love to think that Wenger doesn't see the current midfield partnership as his first-choice pairing, that Ramsey's injury is making him rethink the short-term future while the Welshman recovers. We just need to get him healthy to get an even clearer idea of how he sees this team lining up.