Happy Monday folks, hope we’re all doing ok?

Or are you as bemused as I was yesterday. No, I’m not talking about Liverpool being knocked out of the FA Cup to Plymouth, but rather the images that have emerged from Dubai which seem to suggest that Martinelli is in part taking some part of training out there. This comes after Ornstein has stated that he faces at least a month out just last week, which had us all lamenting our luck that we’re going to be missing another player for a prolonged period of time.

But as you can see from this picture below, it doesn’t look like there’s any strapping and clearly he’s with the team and in his training top, which you wouldn’t expect if he’s fully out for the next month:

Now, to be fair, he could still be injured and in the video that the club released of players training yesterday, which I’ve watched this morning, doesn’t show him or Saka in training despite two of them very publicly being pic’d on the way out. So perhaps I’m reading too much in to it. But even if Martinelli is injured but it isn’t as worse as it was initially feared, that will be a bit of a boost to us at a time in which we seem to lose a different player each week.

In that training video I also couldn’t quite see whether Ben White was there in full training and so perhaps there are different sets of sessions going on for players who are on the way way back. White was also pic’d in the above snap and there’s a general acceptance that he’s back in training and building his fitness up. But I’m inferring from the Martinelli pictures that he’s hopefully not as bad as a month out and maybe we’ll get him back sooner. If he is back within a couple of week’s it’ll certainly have Ornstein asking some of his sources within the club whether they’re ‘sure sure’ in future, I’ll bet!

The other news that was emerging yesterday, which again is unconfirmed, is that there is an expectation that Bukayo Saka is ahead of schedule and could be back in to training and with the team at the beginning of March. That would be a huge boost to us if true because I think most of us expected that he’d not be seen until the beginning of April for the final six weeks of the season, but if Arteta can have his Starboy back – even coming on from the bench for a a game or two – that would be huge for us.

I’ve seen a few people rightly question whether we should be rushing back Saka and yes, I absolutely agree that his fitness should not be sacrificed for any short term gain, but in a period in which we seem to be hit with bad news after bad news for the last three months, something like this along with a White return and maybe Martinelli not being as bad as first feared, would be welcome respite indeed.

It won’t solve the challenges of the ‘now’ though and Arteta is still going to be heavily reliant on that small band of brothers who are fit and play in attack. Trossard, Kai and Ethan are going to need to play plenty of minutes and we have to hope that Sterling can actually do something in an Arsenal shirt rather than not beat his man and run in to blind alleys, for the next few weeks at least. The return to form of Trossard of late is definitely welcome and the fact that Kai has 20 goal involvements is a relief given how we were looking at the beginning of January as a collective attacking unit. Ethan has been a bright spark but we’ll need to acknowledge that he is still just a kid and putting all your faith in a kid – no matter how much talent he has in his boots – is a big ask and probably an unfair one. He’s shown he can make an impact and I’d back him to continue to do that, but we also need to be prepared to see him have quiet games too, as he comes to terms with a lot more regular first team football than I think anyone thought he would have this season.

But hopefully we have enough for the immediate future. We’re entering a working week knowing it’s a trip to Leicester on Saturday lunchtime that the players need to be ready for and as we know that Liverpool will inevitably be smashing Everton (having rested key players yesterday in their FA Cup defeat) on Wednesday to make the gap nine points, then go to a pretty pants Wolves team who absolutely leak goals, we’re going to have to do the business and take all three points against the Foxes this weekend just to save par I suspect. But that’s a conversation as we head in towards the end of this week. For now I’m going to sup on that little bit of Hopium that we will have our key attacking players back within a few weeks and that we might still be hanging on to a title charge when they come back in to the team.

Catch you bunch of wonderful humans tomorrow. Be good.