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Fresh concern for Arsenal: 25-year-old an injury doubt for Hull

By on February 10, 2017

arsenal-francis-coquelin

It looks like Arsenal have another injury concern to contend with as Squawka are reporting that Francis Coquelin is a doubt for the Hull City game due to a hamstring issue.

Coquelin was substituted midway through the second half of our 3-1 defeat at Chelsea last weekend with the midfielder replaced by Olivier Giroud in the 65th minute at Stamford Bridge.

Most assumed  it was a tactical decision but there may have been another underlying factor to consider as it appears Coquelin has been nursing a hamstring injury recently.

Wenger didn’t mention the Frenchman in his team news update yesterday but Squawka report that the 25-year-old could now miss tomorrow’s visit of Hull to the Emirates.

The good news is that Coquelin has been woeful in recent games so we aren’t really going to miss his presence in the starting eleven and Mohamed Elneny is now available to replace him.

The bad news is we’re still low on central midfield options so we could do with Coquelin as an option from the bench. Granit Xhaka is still serving his four-match ban, Aaron Ramsey has a calf injury while Santi Cazorla is no nearer returning from a long-term Achilles injury so we’re down to the bare bones if Coquelin is also ruled out.

The silver-lining could be that it may force Arsene to keep Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the middle of the park as I think he’s down extremely well in recent games.

Either way, whatever team we put out against the Tigers tomorrow needs to step-up as our season is in danger of collapsing following consecutive defeats to Watford and Chelsea.

We desperately need a win this weekend to not only boost our top four hopes in the league but to also give the players a much-needed morale boost heading in to next week’s Champions League last-16 clash at Bayern Munich.