BARTLEY MOVES TO SWANSEA

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Kyle Bartley was regarded as one of the promising youngsters to come out of the Arsenal youth academy in recent seasons, but a number of injuries have meant that he had been unable to break into the Arsenal first team. As a result, the 21-year-old decided to join Swansea on a permanent basis. Once again, injuries have prevented him from showing his full potential for his new club, but the defender is hoping that the second half of the season will be much better for him. He has made just one appearance is joining the club this summer.

However, he could be set for making an appearance against his former club when Swansea take on Arsenal at the Liberty stadium in the FA Cup third-round match on Sunday. Bartley has said that Arsenal have achieved so much this season had they been lucky with the injury to Jack Wilshere. The England international only recently returned to first team action after missing most than 17 months of football due to injury. He was initially earmarked as the replacement for Cesc Fabregas after the Spaniard left for Barcelona more than a year ago, but Wilshere has started showing his influence only recently. Bartley believes that Arsenal will make up the positions in the table sooner rather than later due to the return of Wilshere.

“I still speak to the likes of Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Emmanuel Frimpong and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, all players that I got on well with during my time there. I played alongside Jack for the majority of my time at the club and he is a fantastic player. I’m glad he’s back to full fitness and you can tell from how Arsenal are playing now that they have missed him an awful lot,” said Bartley ahead of the match with Arsenal on Sunday.

TRICKY FIXTURES

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The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has alluded to the fact that the club has had a difficult run of fixtures in the first few months of the campaign. As a result, they find themselves way behind the leaders Manchester United. Arsenal started the new season with the hope of finally ending the league title drought that has existed since 2004. However, this is turning to once again a familiar season for the Arsenal supporters because the team are 12 points behind the leaders with a month to go till Christmas. However, Wenger has said that the first half of the season has been extremely tough for the team in terms of fixtures.

Arsenal have already played away matches against the likes of Manchester City and United. They have been able to come away from these two fixtures with just one point. Wenger reckons that the second half of the season, which will now have home games against the two leaders, will provide the club with ample opportunities to close the gap. Arsenal will be now facing opposition like Swansea, Reading, and Wigan in the next few matches. He has targeted maximum points from these matches in order to close the gap on the Manchester clubs before December.

“We have had a lot of difficult away games and now we reach a moment in the season when we get a chance to push on with some home games. We will come back. Now we have six games, four at home, and if we do well in this block I think we have a chance to come back. Of course it is vital for us to do well in these games, but I believe this team has something special and they will begin to show this in the next few weeks,” Wenger said on the official website of the club.

Wenger gives views on summer buys

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After managing to claw themselves up to 3rd place in the Premier League, it finally looks as though Arsenal are starting to find their feet this season. There’s no doubt that some of the summer acquisitions have played a massive part in this success, with Arsene Wenger quick to lavish the praise on Santi Cazorla and Lukas Podolski about their impact on the team.

Even though the Gunners experienced a sticky start following successive goalless draws against Stoke and Sunderland, they have really come into their own over recent fixtures following a 2-1 victory over Liverpool and a 6-1 thrashing of Sunderland. Cazorla and Podolski have played huge parts in these results, with the duo scoring a combined three goals to make many forget about the absence of Robin Van Persie.

Following their performances, Wenger says he is very happy with how they have both slotted in. He told the press, “Cazorla is a pleasure to watch, you want him to have the ball. He typifies Spain’s midfielders – technically perfect, great vision and a great team attitude and Lukas has 101 caps for Germany – he is physically strong and a fantastic finisher.”

However, while Wenger may have expressed his delight in this regard, he has been slightly more reserved on fellow signing Olivier Giroud. It would be fair to say that the Frenchman has struggled somewhat following his summer switch, with Wenger claiming that he is not sure if he will start the striker against his former club Montpellier on Tuesday. He added to the press, “He is under much pressure at the moment and sometimes to get a little breather is good. What I will do on Tuesday, I honestly don’t know, I just felt that the time has come for him to not be under too much pressure.”