Bad news for Arsenal who have their first player out injured even though the season has not started yet. Olivier Giroud left his last training session on crutches apparently after picking up a calf injury. He was featured for 80 minutes in France’s defeat against Belgium and was expected to be Deschamps’ first pick for the game against Albania. Unfortunately, according to the Daily Star, Giroud will return to London after limping off the pitch during France’s last training session. Even though the crutches could be just standard for these types of injuries, it is still worrying to see Arsenal have to face their first problem of this kind.

Year after year, the Gunners have missed out on key moments and lost momentum due to injuries. Usually this happens later on in the season and keeps going through the entire year. Not sure why nothing has changed up until now. It might be best for all to give up on signing a star quality players and start investing massively in a new medical staff, a recovery center and a complete overhaul of their procedures when it comes to managing injuries. It is incredible how a club as great as Arsenal have such trouble each year and how nothing seemingly gets done about it. It will not matter who Wenger signs, if after 2-3 months Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott and Giroud are at 50% or are out for a couple of months. Hopefully the French international’s early injury will trigger some changes this summer even though his injury clearly happened while on international duty.