Mikel Arteta says Arsenal will make a call on whether Takehiro Tomiyasu will be available for tomorrow’s game at Aston Villa after today’s training session.
The Japan international has been left out of his country’s squad for next week’s crucial World Cup qualifiers, so it seems more likely than not that he’ll be given another couple of weeks to build up his fitness at London Colney following a series of calf issues.
“No news, yesterday we just recovered after the game,” said Arteta when asked for an update on the fitness of his squad.
“Today, we’ll have the first training session, so we’ll see how everybody is today.
“There’s a chance [with Tomiyasu], but we don’t know. We’ll see in the training session how he’s feeling.
“He had a recurring injury around the same place and then obviously after that you have to be a bit more cautious.”
Arteta also revealed that Emile Smith Rowe came into the Liverpool game with a slight issue.
“He was fine, he had a little issue before the game but he’s trained the last two days so hopefully he’ll get now some consistency and momentum.”
With such a quick turnaround between the Liverpool game and the lunchtime kick off at Villa Park, the manager says his focus is on the basics.
“We try to recover well mentally, physically, eat well, sleep well and yesterday spend time recovering and making sure that everybody is fit for today for one day to prepare for the match and be ready for tomorrow.”
Take it easy with Tomi, some big matches coming up we need him to be sorted for.
Keep playing as we did against Liverpool and we’ll have a good chance against Villa anyway.
Villa aren’t in the same league as Liverpool (though they are in the same league…)!
Would be a good time to give a rest to one of our wingers. We have good options on the bench.
Agreed, I was thinking that ESR could start in front of Gabi, unless he has an issue. Also maybe start Pepe instead of Saka. I’d also consider getting Lokonga some minutes in place of Xhaka, maybe he can occupy the left-sided 8 a little better?
I wouldn’t change too much though, especially not in the centre of our midfield. Think Partey and Xhaka should start all our remaining games unless there’s an injury (or stupid red card).
Lot of people in the comments taking Villa for granted. After Chel$ki/Spuds/United/WHU, this is our toughest game remaining. Win would be huge (made even bigger if West Ham take points away from Spuds)
Gonna be a tough game and a win will send a big message. We do rely a lot on the freshness of those Martinelli and Saka legs though
They are dangerous, Slippy G has gotten a few performances out of them.