Midfielder Arijan Ademi tested positive for a banned substance following Dinamo’s win over Arsenal in September and last week was handed a four-year ban by UEFA.
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Arteta’s own goal, coupled with a late penalty miss by Santi Cazorla, ended the Gunners’ six-match unbeaten Premier League run and dented their title challenge.
Arsene Wenger admitted after the game that the injury looked “severe” but refused to speculate over how long the midfielder would be out for until further examinations had been undertaken.
The bad news first, we do not know the extent of Coquelin’s injury yet, but expecting the worst, he could be out for a couple of months, that could very well throw a spanner in the works for Arsenal. Although West Brom did have a great chance to score when Jonas Olsson’s header came back off the bar and bounced up off the goal-line.
Arsenal will be even more frustrated by their loss after Manchester City were beaten at home by Liverpool, with a missed opportunity for the North London club to make a statement in the race for top spot.
Other than those two, the Gunners are also missing Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Danny Welbeck, Tomas Rosicky and Jack Wilshere, and according to Wenger none of those are going to be ready to play tomorrow evening.
West Bromwich scored through James Morrison’s volley and a Mikel Arteta own goal on Saturday after Olivier Giroud gaven Arsenal the lead.
“We lost a bit of focus at 1-0”.
ARSENAL: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin (Arteta, 14), Arteta (Flamini, 49), Cazorla, Sanchez, Ozil, Gibbs (Campbell, 63), Giroud.
“We missed open-goal chances”.
Yet if results go Arsenal’s way in midweek, they will travel to Olympiakos for their final group match on December 9 knowing a win could send them through depending on the margin of victory.
“If we don’t get results we won’t get that time. I’m cautious as we had so many bad surprises on scans that I do not want to speculate more than that”, Wenger who has “not completely decided” whether to risk Ramsey for the first time since the October 20 win against Bayern Munich, told reporters on Monday.
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“He is a good manager, he came in previous year and is still building a squad”.
