Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has revealed that the club weren’t expecting Olivier Giroud to recover so quickly from the injury set back he suffered in August against Everton and as a result did not put his name in the 25-man squad for the UEFA Champions League. He was expected to sit out the whole of this year but has managed to get over the injury ahead of the expected time.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the Dortmund clash, Wenger said, “At the time, we bought Danny Welbeck and we had to put him on the list.
“Giroud was supposed to be unavailable for the qualifying group stage and we put him out.
“He is coming back early and that is good news, but of course he’s not on the list of the 25 selected players.”
However, the 28-year old will be able to play in the knockout stages as Arsenal will be able to add three more players to the squad.
The Frenchman missed 15 games in his absence and will be disappointed not to feature in the Champions League until January, but with that being said, he’ll definitely feature more frequently for Arsenal in the league after impressing in the last game despite playing only a few minutes.
The France international was missed by Arsenal as the North Londoners have been wasteful in front of goal this season which has cost them dearly. Giroud’s last few appearances have been very fruitful for Arsenal as he led a comeback from being 2-0 down against Everton before being injured a few months ago. He scored in Arsenal’s league game against Manchester United but unfortunately for him and his side, the goal came a bit too late to salvage anything in a game that the gunners dominated.
In the absence of Giroud and Welbeck, Yaya Sanogo was asked to lead the attack against Dortmund last night and to everyone’s surprise the young French striker opened the scoring in the first few minutes of the game.
Arsenal’s next Premier League game is against West Brom and having picked up just 17 points from the 12 games so far, the need to start winning games will be imperative.