Ahhh wasn’t it nice to see Jurrien Timber back in training with the first team, eh?

arsenal posted some pictures of him on the Emirates turf and after a tumultuous start to his Arsenal career caused by that ACL injury, he will feel like he can finally get back on track and make the most of being an Arsenal player. I’m sure Mikel and all of the Arsenal staff are delighted to have him back.

I think most of us are realistic though; we know that it is unlikely that he’ll be part of a match day squad any time soon and I suspect it’ll be at least two weeks of solid training with the first team before Arteta brings him in for a place on the bench on match day. That would effectively take us up to mid March, for which I suspect even then he’ll only ever have cameo appearances until April. Nevertheless it’s a positive sign and with Partey and Gabriel Jesus back in training and with the team not playing until Monday night, you’d hope that the competition for places in the sqad – not just the first XI – are going to start hotting up.

And we’re going to need it because I bet Arteta is looking at the impending game against Porto as one in which he would ideally like to undertake a bit of rotation in the games before and after. Before that game we have Brentford on the Saturday and then after that game there is a rest, on account of Chelsea scraping past Leeds, which means there will be another extended break for these Arsenal players and I think you and I both know what we want from that:

BACK TO DUBAI BOYS!!

That trip was a successful one given the form Arsenal have shown since, but what it will also be an opportunity to do is to get the whole team prepped for the big crunch encounter against Man City on 31st March. Unfortunately there’s an international break before then, but at least Arteta will be able to prep his team before they all go away. As long as they all come back fighting fit then it will put us in a really good position to try to do something in the blue side of Manchester that we haven’t done in nearly a decade.

What these returning players ,coming back also mean is that the squad is looking in a good shape to rotate because we will eventually have to play Chelsea and that will invariably be a midweek game in April I suspect. As I’ve already mentioned earlier this week the Champions League dates are 9/10 April and 16/17 April, so if we progress that far we’ll have two midweek’s out of four that are ruled out because of participation in that competition. That means it’d have to be played on one of the other midweeks, unless Wolves progress to the next round of the FA Cup and Chelsea also progress. I would suggest the chances are quite high and that would mean we’d be kicking our heels on Saturday 20th April as that’s the dedicated weekend for the semi final. There will be space to play a few days later if both Wolves and Chelsea are in action, but I suspect you’d then be looking at May for us playing either Wolves or Chelsea (we would have to have the Wolves game moved if they progress too, as we’re supposed to be playing them on 20th April when the semi finals take place).

So all-in-all it is looking like April and May is going to get quite congested for The Arsenal, with the only up side being a possible weekend off in April towards the end-ish of it, which means getting players back to full fitness for that April/May period could be massive. If Arteta has 16 – 18 players he trusts to rotate, I think it could help us massively.

Of course there are other caveats that exist; Timber might take another six months before he feels comfortable enough in his body to be the player that we saw in the Community Shield and in pre season, one of our current first teamers could go down like we had Saliba and Tomiyasu get injured last season at a crucial point. The difference I personally feel when I think about that scenario is that it feels like we’re more well stocked for options than we were a year ago. For Saliba you could put White, Tomiyasu or even Declan Rice in at centre half, each of which is a more palatable option than Rob Holding. Even if you put Rice back in, if Partey were to come in and play at the six where Rice plays, you’re talking about the quality of the team remaining high (if he remains fit!). If something happens to Zinchenko you have Kiwior who has shown he can more than come in and do a job, but before him you also have Tomiyasu and also Timber could potentially play there. If Gabriel goes down we have Kiwior who can come in to central defence and Tomiyasu plays left centre-back for his country, so we know he will be experienced enough in his role. I’ve already mentioned Partey for Rice in midfield, but in the left and right eight positions we have Kai, Odegaard, Fabio Vieira, ESR and Trossard who can all do a decent job. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nowhere near as good as Odegaard, but it’s not like we don’t have options and have to chuck a load of kids in. Then up top if Gabby J remains fit there’s him, Trossard, Kai, before we even mention Eddie, whilst on the wing we might even see Gabby J operate there if needed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that as we reach the crunch point in the season, it feels like we’re getting bodies back, which can only be a good thing.

And on that positive note I shall leave you for today. Enjoy your Thursday and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.