Arca aims to be back for derby
8:54am Friday 5th September 2008
WITH the first North-East derby of the season less than three weeks away, one player is battling to be fit in time to face his old club. Julio Arca’s ankle injury has seen him spend this season on the sidelines, but he is targeting Boro’s trip to Sunderland for his first team return.
“Obviously I would like to be available for that game, possibly not playing but on the bench. But if not then maybe the game after. I’m not going to rush back for the sake of it – I need to make sure I’m 100 per cent,” said Arca, whose last appearance in a Boro shirt was in the final game of last season.
“It’s slowly getting better, we are thinking that I will be able to train with the team in a couple of weeks if everything goes in the right direction.”
Arca was Gareth Southgate’s first major signing when he swapped the Stadium of Light for the Riverside in 2006 for a £1.75m fee on a five-year deal. And the leftsided midfielder has played a major role in previous Tees- Wear derbies.
In his last season on Wearside, he scored a free-kick as Sunderland ran out 2-0 winners at the Riverside. But the Argentinian cemented his place in the hearts of Boro fans when, last season, he scored against his old club in a 2-2 draw.
As Arca later limped out of that match after sustaining an injury, he was roundly applauded by the travelling Sunderland supporters – a measure of the high regard he continues to enjoy on Wearside.
But he is desperate to get back into action for Boro.
“It’s never nice to get injured whether now or at any time of the season.
“I’m definitely frustrated but I’m trying to be positive and get back as quickly as possible.
“But we want to take it slowly and take precautions just in case it happens again.
We obviously want to make sure that everything’s fine.
It’s so frustrating to get injured at the beginning of the season, it happened last year but this time its not so bad,”
confirmed Arca who has nevertheless been delighted by Boro’s strong start to the campaign.
He said: “We’ve had a really good start to the season and are playing good football.
We’ve played two big teams and we probably deserved to win both games.
“We have a lot of pace and I think these are exciting times for the club.”
■ Midfielder Mohamed Shawky has suffered a groin injury while on international duty with Egypt.
He has withdrawn from the squad and could be sidelined for around two or three weeks.