Arsenal suffer Cazorla and Elneny injury blows

Santi Cazorla has been out of action since October due to an ankle injury and the midfielder was initially expected to be out for just a couple of weeks due to the problem.

Unfortunately, Cazorla’s situation has not improved despite numerous surgeries over the past few months and now in a huge blow for the Gunners, the Daily Mirror have revealed that the 32-year-old midfielder will be ruled out for the rest of the current campaign.

Given Cazorla’s importance both on and off the pitch for Arsenal, his continued absence through injury will surely affect the Gunners in a negative fashion and it remains to be seen as to whether the veteran can return to his best if and when he regains full fitness.

In addition to Cazorla, another midfield player in Mohamed Elneny has also suffered an ankle injury (as reported by Football.London) and although the Egyptian’s situation is not as bad as the Spaniard, he looks set to be ruled out for the upcoming encounters against Liverpool and Bayern Munich over the next two weeks.

Ozil handed a special break by Wenger

Mesut Ozil has endured a dramatic loss of form over the past few matches and following the 5-1 defeat against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the German star was completely omitted from the FA Cup 5th Round clash against Sutton United on Monday night.

The Times have now revealed that Ozil has been handed a special rest by manager Arsene Wenger to deal with his back spasms and the 28-year-old is currently recuperating back in Germany, spending time with his family members.

Perez wants to leave Arsenal

Arsenal secured the services of Lucas Perez from Deportivo La Coruna late into the summer transfer window and despite his credentials, the Spaniard has not had a fair chance to establish himself as a regular for the Gunners’ first team this season.

Although Perez has impressed whenever he has played, the 28-year-old has not been handed a consistent run of games by manager Arsene Wenger and now the player’s agent Rodrigo Fernandez Lovelle has made an admission that the striker wants to leave the Emirates Stadium in search of regular first team football next season.

Lovelle told Calciomercato, "The matter is that Lucas want to leave at all costs and is not happy at Arsenal. He hasn't settled and hasn't had the chance to play and show what he can do. No matter who will be the coach, we want to go. The player must have an opportunity to play."

Wenger will manage till 2021

There has been a lot of pressure from the fans on Arsene Wenger to leave his current post as manager of Arsenal following another disappointing campaign for the Gunners and it is believed that the veteran boss retiring at the end of the season is a big possibility.

Amid the speculation, Wenger recently spoke about his future and surprisingly stated that although he may not stay at Arsenal, he will not retire from management anytime soon.

The 67-year-old explained that he wants to stay in management for the next four years and added that he prefers to stay at Arsenal until his eventual retirement.

He was quoted saying by the Daily Mirror, “My preference is always to manage Arsenal and I have shown that. But I think I am adult enough to analyse the situation.(Alex) Ferguson has some other ­interests in life and he was older than I am today. He was four years older, he retired at 71 and I’m 67.

“Maybe I will do four seasons more, maybe less, I don’t know. Everybody is different. I do not want to take anything away from Ferguson, he was an ­absolutely unbelievable manager. But he had had enough. I’m not at that stage.”

Arsenal’s hopes of earning a berth into the quarter finals of the Champions League is all but over after the Gunners’ succumbed to an embarrassing 5-1 defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich in the 1st leg of the Champions League Round of 16 encounter at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday.

The Gunners did play well in the first half and had managed to score the all important away goal through Alexis Sanchez after falling behind early to an Arjen Robben screamer.

However, Arsenal simply capitulated during the second period and quick fire strikes from the likes Robert Lewandowski and Thiago Alcantara as well as a late goal from Thomas Muller meant that Arsene Wenger’s men ended the game at the wrong side of a 5-1 hammering.

There was understandably a lot of reaction to Arsenal’s terrible performance on the night and manager Arsene Wenger bemoaned the fact that his side could not maintain their concentration in defence following the departure of Laurent Koscielny from the pitch through injury.