It's just hilarious that we thought we'd be coming back from the international break with a lot of players back. Instead, Havertz has suffered a setback, Gyokeres is a major doubt and we've lost our best defender and set-piece threat for up to 2 months. .
Depressing stuff - I will say this, if our luck does not turn around, the title is gone. No team on earth could cope with the injury run we are having (or had last year). As it is, the title has to be called a long shot given the injuries we are facing until the end of the year/Jan. One thing we know, is that timelines for returns are always longer than first thought AND it takes a good few weeks for a player to properly get up to speed when coming back from a layoff.
As the season progresses, it's once again showing that we never had any need for a 20 goal striker as was repeatedly claimed. What we needed was options, which we took care of. A single player scoring a lot of goals is not important It's more about how many we score as a team. Right now we are the top scorers in the league and our top scorer has just 4 PL goals. Our system is one that shares the goals around and creates attacking threat from multiple areas of the team play. That is massively preferable to a team being reliant on 1 player to bag goals. Haaland, for example, has 14 PL goals already - yet City haven't scored more than us and sit 7 points behind in the table. I feel one or two players in our team can have off days and we'll still score goals - that is vital through the season. We do need players available though - still concerned with the injury situation. If we can get our players back and continue to spread the goals around we have a real shot at not just the title but perhaps more. It's worth reflecting on the job Arteta has done. When he took over we were a complete mess and now we're viewed as the best team in the country and possibly Europe. That is a fantastic job. If we do go on and win the title then it caps a remarkable achievement by Arteta and his staff.
Arteta's presser earlier confirming that Madueke and Martinelli are back fully fit and Odegaard is almost there, will have a late fitness test ahead of the Bayern game. So that's good news. Also sounds like Gyokeres and Havertz could be in contention to be back for the Chelsea game (indicating the Bayern game will come too early for both of them). Hopefully no more medium to long term injuries for the rest of the season now. Wishful thinking I know, but one can hope...
Max Dowman with an incredible individual goal against Bayern Munich's U19s in the UEFA Youth League that secured a 4-2 victory for us. This kid looks absolutely outrageous.
