In the first half of the season, central defense was the matter of concern for Arsenal with injury hitting one after another and decreasing Arsene Wenger’s options at the back line. Now, it seems that injury is gradually shifting its focus from Arsenal’s defense line to its midfield as the Gunners have already lost two of their crucial midfielders- Samir Nasri and Alex Song- in the recent weeks and they would be sidelined for around three weeks.
Samir Nasri has been perhaps Arsenal’s best performer so far this season and was one of the crucial players in their small passing game. His creativity and scoring earned his team a lot of points throughout the first half of the season. Nasri along with Fabregas, Walcott and Robin van Persie formed a lethal quartet which started to work for Wenger.
Similarly, Alex Song has also been a dominant player who along with Jack Wilshere provided lot of support to Arsenal’s struggling backline and cover for their wingbacks, especially Bacary Sagna. The most important thing is that Song focused not only in intercepting opponent attacks, but also building up attacks for his team, showing his creativity and vision.
So, losing the two midfielders for 3 crucial weeks has been a big blow for Wenger boys who are desperate to bring an end to their five-year title draught. It is pretty much certain that both players would miss Arsenal’s Champions League encounter with Barcelona on 16 February. Moreover, the midfielder duo would also miss a number of Premier League matches.
Overall, Arsenal has a very tough challenge to take up in the coming weeks and the players like Fabregas, Wilshere and Arshavin must step up to go through this phase without suffering any major damage to their title hope.
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