Mikel Arteta has seen Arsenal suffer roughly 15 separate injury blows already this season but the hope is that plenty of good news will arrive after the November international break
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be hoping to suffer no more injury blows especially as no imminent returns are expected. The Gunners have been hit by several key absences so far this season with Viktor Gyokeres the latest player to pick up an issue.
“He hasn’t trained today [Monday], and we need to do some more tests and scans to understand the extent of the injury,” Arteta admitted earlier this week after he was forced off in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Burnley.
“So, we are digging in a little bit more to understand where we are in terms of the injury, and we will announce it when we know more.” That was taken as quite a concerning Gyokeres update by Arteta, but there is one potential positive.
Following this weekend’s Premier League clash against Sunderland, the final international break of 2025 begins which means Arsenal will not play again until Sunday, November 23 against Tottenham in the North London Derby.
If the 27-year-old is only ruled out for a few weeks, it seems likely that he could only miss one Arsenal game. As things stand, Gyokeres going away with Sweden is hard to imagine and that scenario playing out would allow him to remain at London Colney and recover.
Arteta made a number of changes for the trip to the Czech Republic but that did not overly impact his side’s performance as they rode out 3-0 winners.
Martin Zubimendi was suspended for that clash with Declan Rice avoiding a third caution that would have seen him suspended for their next European clash against Bayern Munich.
No obvious and new injuries appeared to be suffered, though there was concern over a potential concussion for Gabriel Magalhaes.
However, the physios were only called on to stop a cut on his face from bleeding after a collision in the 18th minute with the Brazil international able to see out the game.
Elsewhere, there is hope that Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard, Noni Madueke and Kai Havertz will all be able to return in November.
“I would say weeks, and some of them pretty soon, hopefully,” Arteta said in his latest injury update on the quartet.
“If they keep evolving the way they are doing. Difficult to put a game… We have an International break, and after that, I think we’ll have some back. I don’t know if it’s going to be all of them, some of them, but we’ll be quite close by then.”
Gabriel Jesus is still recovering from a long-term knee injury suffered back in January, though he is expected back in the latter stages of this year.
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