Arsenal's fears were confirmed yesterday, as Arsene Wenger revealed that their talismanic midfielder this season, Samir Nasri will miss the all important fixture against Barcelona in the Champions League - a match that can border on impossible to win at the best of times. With a front line that strikes fear into even the strongest defence in the land, and a defence that can drive out some of the most potent attackers around, when you play Barcelona with the objective of winning, you need a strong team.Arsenal's game against Barcelona is on the 16th of February, and with that date only being just under two weeks away, the hamstring injury that the Frenchman has suffered will most certainly keep him out of it - barring a miraculous recovery. Wenger said:
"For Nasri, the scan shows a hamstring strain. [He will be out for] 21 days."Wenger's plan to play Nasri in the F.A Cup clash with Huddersfield has backfired - something which he admits, but it is now not the only injury problem that Wenger must solve. There are also concerns over the fitness of another midfielder, Alex Song. The Arsenal manager said:
"Song cannot walk. I don't know what he has got. He was kicked, I think it was by [Laurent] Koscielny; he knocks out everybody in our team. So we have to see how he responds to that in the next days, but he cannot walk at the moment."
Apart from knocking "out everybody in the team", Koscielny has been talking about winning the title, and has pointed out, probably quite rightly, that Arsenal are the only challengers with Manchester United for the Premier League title. Continuing to comment on the blatantly obvious, Koscielny said:
"We have got more points than Manchester City, Chelsea and the others"He continued:
"Anything can happen in this league. That's why we must keep working hard together. We will keep fighting. It's important we keep our defence strong.
"If we don't concede, we will always make chances to score ourselves. It's going to be a big battle between us and Manchester United and hopefully they will drop points, not us.
"It's not going to be easy. But we have faith in ourselves and in the squad. We do believe we can do it so bring it on."Arsenal's next game is against a side only recently freed of their talisman, Andy Carroll. Newcastle have £35 million in the bank, but can do nothing with it at the present time, and last night saw yet another striker leave their team. Shola Ameobi walked off in agony with an apparent broke cheekbone, or something painful, and he will either miss the game, or wear a protective mask. Arsenal are not the only team with problems it seems.
