LONDON -- Arsenal duo Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs could miss Saturday's trip to West Brom, but Mohamed Elneny is back in the squad after recovering from an ankle injury, Arsene Wenger has said.
Oxlade-Chamberlain came off during the first half of Saturday's 5-0 FA Cup victory over Lincoln City with a hamstring problem and faces a fitness test later on Thursday, Wenger said at a news conference. Gibbs played the full 90 minutes against Lincoln but is "uncertain" for this weekend, Wenger added without specifying the left-back's injury concern.
Elneny is back in training earlier than expected after missing nearly a month with an ankle problem he suffered in the previous round of the FA Cup at Sutton United.
"At the start it looked like it was a very bad ankle injury. He has recovered well because he's a very strong boy and very keen to come back as quickly as possible," Wenger said. "It worked well for him."
Arsenal need a win at West Brom to keep up with their top-four rivals going into the international break. Arsenal are fifth, five points behind fourth-placed Liverpool but with two games in hand. The Gunners also have a game in hand on Tottenham and Manchester City, who are both six points ahead of them.
"It's a strange championship because there's no continuity at the moment -- we've had games cancelled, after you play away, you don't play, you play FA Cup and you play away again," Wenger said.
"So you don't really know where you stand. You have not the same number of games, you have not the continuity home and away. What is for sure is that we are in a position where we can't waste points."
However, Wenger's sides have traditionally struggled against Tony Pulis teams in away games, and he praised West Brom's success in playing a more possession-oriented style of football this season. West Brom are in eighth place in the Premier League table, and Wenger knows their size will pose a difficult challenge for his team.
"They have a big experience, they are well organised, physically very strong and very efficient on set-pieces," Wenger said. "I think they're the team who have scored more goals than anybody else on set pieces.
"This season they've done very well in midfield. They have played very well and up front they have Hal Robson-Kanu and Salomon Rondon who have done very well for them up front as well. It's a very balanced team with a good size who are very equipped to deal with the Premier League."
Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich last week and now only have a top-four finish and the FA Cup to play for. That has put more pressure on Wenger, who is facing constant criticism from sections of the Arsenal fan base who want him to leave the club when his contract expires this summer.
But he didn't want to discuss what would count as "success" for the team from this point on.
"Success, it's not down to me to judge that. I'll leave that to you," he said. "Our job is to do as well as we can until the end of the season. We want to play in the Champions League next season. We have a tough job because we have six or seven teams fighting for the places and how well we do until the end of the season will of course depend on that.
"On the rest, we are in the semifinal of the FA Cup, we have an opportunity to do that as well. So overall that's our targets. After that, success is basically to take the maximum out of the potential of the team. Where is that? We will see."
To win the FA Cup, though, Arsenal have to get past Manchester City in a tough semifinal at Wembley next month. The cup is now Pep Guardiola's only realistic chance of a trophy in his first season at City after they were knocked out by Monaco in the Champions League on Wednesday.
But whatever happens in that game, Wenger promised it would be an entertaining affair.
"It's a tough challenge but it promises a very exciting game as well because it's two teams who will try to go to the game in a very positive move, and go for it," Wenger said. "It should be a very promising offensive game."
