Cesc Fabregas started his Wednesday evening with the perfect start – his seventh Premier League goal of the campaign in the cold north of Turf Moor. Cesc Fabregas brought heartache and despair to 44% of FPL managers a little over half an hour later as he trundled off the pitch injured just before half time, having picked up a hamstring injury.
As this only happened a mere few hours ago news is still relatively thin on the ground, so we must rely on the words Arsene Wenger shared with the press after the match, they were as follows:
“He is injured but for how long I don’t know. It is a hamstring. He will not play on Saturday.”
A nicely vague answer to keep all of us fantasy managers on our toes, for now. One thing is certain, and that is Fabregas won’t be available for the very favourable home fixture with Hull this weekend joining Messrs. Van Persie, Bendtner & Rosicky (amongst others) on the sidelines…
Hopefully in the next couple of days further word will come down from the Arsenal camp (generally very good with injury news) as to how long Fabregas’ leave of absence from the starting line-up will be. With a busy Christmas schedule and a double gameweek on the horizon (gameweek 20, deadline closes at 11:30am on 28th December, less than 2 weeks away) many of us will be crossing our fingers and toes the prognosis is relatively light, and positive, so as this seasons top points scorer can continue to reap rewards for our teams.
This also leaves Arsenal looking more and more barren in the offensive ranks. Even if only for one game Andrei Arshavin now looks set to become even more pivotal to the result at the Emirates, can he somewhat step out of the shadows and live up to the task? And will he be able to survive anyhow if he doesn’t have either of Robin and now Fabregas providing him with their wide array of passes? We shall see.
Fabregas’ absence will also pose a question or two as to who will fill in for him in the meantime. Samir Nasri certainly seems capable of providing an attacking impetus as Abou Diaby could too. However I have a sneaky suspicion (and this might just be me) that Aaron Ramsey (a £4.8m FPL steal) will be given a chance to play in a fixture that one surely can’t regard as the toughest.
Ramsey came off the substitutes bench to replace Cesc last night as well as when Fabregas had to be replaced at half-time at home to Portsmouth in August with a previous injury, so Wenger clearly trusts the young Welshman. With 2 goals and 1 assist in 127 home minutes this season, he could even prove to be a stirling shout as a one week (or more? who knows yet) punt in our fantasy teams, if you are of the daring persuasion of course.
Plenty for us to think about then, there is certainly no need to be rushing into anything just yet – I will be hoping that Fabregas will be fit and ready to rejoin my starting line-up as soon as possible.
Get well soon Cesc, yours sincerely, Andy.