Had a couple of days of extreme hangover on Sunday and then yesterday, so really didn’t feel like coming on here to lament about Big Gabi, but I guess you have to eventually face up to the inevitable.

I watched a short clip of Martin Keown on that national radio station that has become a click-bait fest these days and he seemed optimistic that he might be fit for the North London Derby, but there’s absolutely no way I can see that happening. He was hobbling off when he picked up the injury, he spent the whole of the second half with ice on his groin (that’s an unpleasant enough experience for anyone!) and then there are pictures of him milling around by the team bus later whilst hobbling. This isn’t a mild knock. It’s an injury. With the North London Derby a week away from the date of that game, I just can’t see how he’ll make it. A quick search on Google brings up this:

An adductor strain can take from 1-2 weeks for a mild (Grade 1) strain to 3-6 weeks for a moderate (Grade 2) strain, and up to 3-4 months for a severe (Grade 3) strain. The exact healing time depends on the injury’s severity, and recovery requires rest and physical therapy, with a gradual return to activity to prevent re-injury.

So I think the best we can probably hope for is one of those Grade one strains that means he’s back for Chelsea. But knowing our luck (and I really hope I don’t speak this in to existence) it’ll be a two or a three and we won’t see him until the new year. I don’t expect when Arteta is asked about him, that he’ll give anything away and if anything, I suspect he’ll make it sound like there’s an outside chance. Remember last season? I’m pretty sure it was the North London Derby then that we heard him talk about Odegaard and how he wanted to play the week after an international break. There were people wondering how on earth he could play, but that ended up just being a bit of a red herring from the manager; he missed 14 games in what turned out to be the biggest injury spell out in his career and we ended up not seeing him until the beginning of November 57 days later.

What we have to hope with Big Gabi is that it isn’t that bad, but even three weeks is massive in the context of this season. As you’ll have already heard from other podcasters, listened to on the radio and probably read in other articles, Gabriel Magalhaes is more than just out best defender; he’s our most ominous threat from set pieces too. Even when he doesn’t score, he’s occupying sometimes two or three defenders, which gives other players opportunities and to have that taken away from us in a meaningless friendly is frustrating beyond words. I get that he could have picked up the injury at any stage right about now – training, Arsenal match, etc – but firstly, he didn’t, and secondly, the rumours that he was already in the fabled ‘red zone’ only makes it more maddening. His manager for Brazil and the coaching staff need to be the ones to take responsibility there; players will never say they don’t want to play, so you need to be the one to say “we’ll sit you out for now”. What would have been wrong with him sitting that out, getting rest, then playing in their next friendly against Lille? I know he was playing at the Emirates and he would have been desperate to get out there, but sometimes teams need to just take the decision out of the players hands.

Speaking of decisions being taken out of our hands, how about the fact we got news yesterday that Michael Olivier is going to referee the North London Derby this Sunday, eh? When was the last time we saw him I wonder? Oh yeah, when he completely wrongly sent off Myles Lewis-Skelly against Wolves last season. But Michael Oliver has now got a rap sheet against us. Check this stat out from Scott from January – 13% of matches that Michael Oliver has refereed involving us have a red card in them. When you think about that volume going back those years, that is a carzy high stat and includes Man City and Trossard’s farcical one from last season too. It includes the Martinelli ‘double yellow in one action’ that we haven’t seen before since, as well as the ‘non sending off’ of Kovacic, which Howard Webb later tried to fob off as ‘not wanting to ruin the game’ or words to that effect. Of course that wasn’t the case when Trossard was sent off last season, but we got another ham-fisted reasoning from Webb that following week too, so we shouldn’t really be surprised.

All I want is a game without controversy. Don’t make it about you, Oliver. Referee the game as everyone see’s it. Last weekend the game felt refereed differently with you on VAR desperately searching for a reason to rule out Liverpool’s equaliser. Don’t give us reason to think there’s a Michael Oliver-shaped chair sitting in the blue half of Manchester. Ref it fairly, ref it equally, if there’s the right call to be made, then make it. I am tired of talking about sh*t refereeing standards from the PGMOL. I want to talk about the football and if Arsenal deserve a red card, then fine, or if we concede a penalty through our own stupidity, then ok. But I don’t want to find myself shouting myself hoarse because you’ve done what you did on the aforementioned incidents. Please.

Just to add a sh*te cherry on a sh*te PGMOL cake, we’ve got Attwell on VAR, who we’ve also got previous with him and until September this season he hadn’t refereed a game for us in nearly two years because of the debacle at St James’ Park a few season’s back. So theres something for us to look forward to…

I’ll leave you stewing on that one like me! Have a good one folks and i’ll be back tomorrow.