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Arsenal boss confirms key duo will miss West Brom clash

By mac14 on December 23, 2016

Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Shkodran Mustafi will miss Arsenal’s clash with West Bromwich Albion on Boxing Day.

Oxlade-Chamberlain limped off just 12 minutes after coming on as a second half substitute during our 2-1 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium last weekend.

The boss was hopeful that the injury wasn’t anything serious and reports in the newspapers earlier this week suggested that Oxlade-Chamberlain was given positive news after undergoing a scan on Tuesday.

Wenger has now confirmed that while the 23-year-old will miss Monday’s clash with West Brom, he should be back within a matter of days and not weeks.

That means The Ox could be available to take on Crystal Palace at the Emirates on New Year’s Day or failing that he may make the trip to the South Coast to face Bournemouth on January 3rd.

Unfortunately Wenger also confirmed at his pre-match press conference today that Mustafi will sit out the Boxing Day visit of West Brom as he continues to nurse a hamstring injury.

The German international suffered the problem during our win over Stoke earlier this month and has been sorely missed during the recent defeats to Everton and Manchester City so it’s a blow to lose him for the Baggies game.

However, Arsene says the centre-back should be back at the start of the New Year so let’s hope he’ll be in contention to take on Palace and Bournemouth.

As we reported earlier, the boss also confirmed that Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck will return to full training today so our injury woes are slowly easing.

Here is what Arsene told Arsenal.com:

on the latest team news…
I think for Monday we lose Chamberlain from the last game against City. I don’t know if Ramsey will be involved or not but he will be back in full training today. The good news is that Welbeck will join in today for the first time – he has been out for a very long time. Mustafi is still out until the beginning of January.

on Oxlade-Chamberlain…
It’s not very bad. It’s a question of days rather than weeks.