With Santos recently ruled out until March, Arsene Wenger desperately hoped that Gibbs would be fit for Wednesday's game, but the left-back has now suffered another setback on his road to recovery, leaving Wenger to contemplate bringing in a temporary replacement next month. He is reportedly ready to offload out-of-favour forward Andrei Arshavin in January as he looks to bolster his squad.
It's not that Arshavin has been terrible just this season, his poor play has been a growing trend for more than a year and he has run out of chances to impress Wenger. Instead of implementing an us-against-the-world mentality, Arsène Wenger has waved the white flag by telling the world his team would not win the Premier League after their 1-0 loss to Manchester City.
Wenger’s options have been boosted with goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski and young attacking option Ryo Miyaichi close to a return to action. “We are a team who are more mature in our behaviour because the age is higher,” Wenger said.
Beside that's all, Wenger has hailed captain Robin van Persie as an excellent leader for the club.
