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.