David Moyes told reporters he is concerned Noble, Arnautovic and Zabaleta all of which picked up small injuries in the away win against Stoke.
Mark Noble picked up a hamstring strain, while Marko Arnautovic suffered a calf strain and Pablo Zabaleta played with a dead leg.
Moyes told the press conference “Obviously, there are a few dropping at the moment. Mark Noble has now got an injury, we had Zabaleta with a dead leg from early on in the game, so we are finding ourselves struggling for players.
Even at the end, Marko Arnautovic had a calf strain so we had to bring him off for Chicharito to go on the right as we ran out of midfield players, even with Declan Rice coming on. We’re all mucking in, all doing their jobs and they are doing it well and defensively we have kept another clean sheet which is always good at the wrong end of the table.”
I hope Moyes is not tempted too much to play mostly the same team for the cup tie with the arse.No wonder there were a few slight hamstring/muscle problems these players need to be fit for the more important league games.Yes it would be a real lift for the whole club if we won a cup,but we don’t have the luxury of a cushion between us and the now chasing pack.The Christmas period schedule needs sorting out,too many games,too many injuries,too expensive. COYI
Do what the arsenal do ? Not take this cup too serious! Play the kids with Hart as the skipper, and save players for big game Saturday ??? Got to stay premiership team? Too many game’s over Christmas? Players do not need to pick up any injures in a CUP game like this, they need time to rest and recover from knocks from the Stoke game. After all Newcastle are gonna be fresh Saturday and up for it ????
Not really an injury update. What is the extent of the problems and what is the timescale?
For the midweek game we need to be competitive without putting pressure on the Saturday team. I’m becoming more confident that Moyes knows what he’s doing.
Leave it to him.
I actually think that beating Arsenal and getting to the Semi’s would be an amazing confidence boost and I don’t think would harm our survival chances. I am not completely sure on the answer to this so any confirmation would be greatly appreciated but if we get to the Semi’s and the other 3 are City, Man U, Chelsea I believe we get a Europa league spot as the highest placed non other route qualifying team.
In honesty wjo the last thing we need is a Europa league spot next season.
We need to concentrate on having a team capable of achieving top end league positions year in year out and not back door entry to something that streched us beyond our capacity at the time.
With the heavy Christmas period coming up, sadly we are bound to get injuries as all players will be stretched, so Moyes will have that in mind, and it will be an ideal time to give bench players and some youngsters a run out, because we may need them after Christmas. We have enough talent to put out a decent team. Arsenal had the “Young Guns” a while ago and it worked for them.