Mikel Arteta has given an update on the fitness of Martin Odegaard, Ben White and Bukayo Saka ahead of the Gunners’ opening match of the Champions League against Athletic Club.
Odegaard suffered a shoulder injury in the 3-0 victory over Nottingham Forest and was substituted for Ethan Nwaneri after 18 minutes.
White hasn’t featured since starting at Old Trafford on August 17, with Saka going off against Leeds United on August 23.
Arteta spoke with the media (via arsenal.com) in Bilbao ahead of the clash at San Mames and delivered the verdict on his stars, as well as giving an update on Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus.
“Gabi, Kai, Ben and Martin are still out, unfortunately,” he
On Saka’s fitness, Mikel said: “No, I think there are still quite a lot of things to go through. It’s very early to understand when and which week he’s going to be available. But he will certainly be pushing to be available as quickly as possible.”
With Jesus and Havertz still recovering from respective knee injuries, Viktor Gyokeres has started every game so far this season up front.
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Mikel Merino was deployed as a striker last season, and when asked about rotation, Arteta was happy with the depth of the squad going into this campaign.
He said: “Against Forest at the end, Mikel [Merino] played as a nine. We have Leo [Trossard] who can play there, we have other options and other formations that we can adjust to that. At the moment, Viktor is doing really well, so I’m really happy with that.
“Unfortunately, we have a few players already out, so that is already limited in certain positions. But hopefully we come to the point that the competition and the level of performance of the players are so high that we are able to do that very efficiently to win more football matches as our objective.”
