Kieran Tierney will miss Arsenal’s Europa League clash with Sporting Lisbon because he’s feeling unwell.
The Scotland international was tipped to start tomorrow’s match in place of Oleksandr Zinchenko but was absent from first team training this morning ahead of the trip to Portugal.
Having only played 147 minutes of football this year, the timing of this illness will no doubt be frustrating to the full-back who was this week linked with a summer move to Newcastle.
Tierney was on the bench for the 3-2 win over Bournemouth and, strangely for him, was seen sporting a coat, gloves and snood during the stoppage time celebrations. We might be reading too much into it but given he usually foregoes such comforts, perhaps he was already feeling a tad under the weather?
At Colney – Gabriel Jesus coming out for training with the squad. pic.twitter.com/txFrxeXY0m
— Charles Watts (@charles_watts) March 8, 2023
As expected Leandro Trossard (groin) and Eddie Nketiah (ankle) were also absent from training. However, Gabriel Jesus did take part and could, according to various sources, make the trip to Lisbon.
Whether the Brazil international is fit enough to be part of the squad remains to be seen.
Mikel Arteta faces the press from the Portuguese capital later this evening. It’ll be interesting to see whether he discusses how he plans to reshuffle his pack.
This feels like an international break. I’m more nervous about injuries than the result!
In everything in life you can either be motivated by love or by fear. Reiss Nelson showed us a few days ago what’s possible when you’re motivated by love, there was no fear in his heart as the ball came to him on the edge of the box in the 97th minute… I say we should take inspiration from him
That’s really a lovely way of putting things. Thanks!
Poor KT. I really wish he’d had more game time this season. Easy to forget what a brilliant player he’s been for us.
He must be very ill, he usually wears a T-shirt and shorts in all weathers.
He’s Scottish, so defo a concern!
Lisbon is too warm, even in winter, for tierney.
Colney certainly isn’t judging from that video…
Frustrating.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the Europa League. The 12 remaining Premier League games are all that matter this season. It looks like Arteta will have to play more first-teamers in this game than he would have liked to. Shame.
Great news about Jesus: with a tough run-in ahead of us he may well have a significant role to play.
Know what you mean but I really wouldn’t mind winning the europa league (as well as the premier league, of course…)
Want to win every trophy but even if we don’t pick up more injuries fatigue may cost us points in the PL
Maybe we can get closer to the final without having to play too many first teamers. Less of an issue then.
I see no reason for downvotes. It’s obvious that taking Europa League seriously by playing first-teamers risks our PL chance.
I do agree fats but I also think momentum and keeping the winning feeling will be great fuel for the final push.
How many extra games (assuming we reached the final) does Europa give us?
I think seven more games – home and away legs for the upcoming rounds, then the final!!!
As the final is a one off, it’s seven including the two against Lisbon. If we make the final, it’s 19 league and cup games by the end of May…
some of the squad could use some game time.. I’m all for resting and winning. We can have both hopefully. Players should be back for the next round of fixture after the interlull
If momentum and “keeping the winning feeling” are at the cost of further injuries and fatigue to the first team, then we might be looking at a penny-wise-pound-foolish scenario at the end.
The Europa League becomes pretty tough from the quarter finals, and if we want to win it, it has to be the first team with very few tweaks from then. Can we afford to do the Thursday – Sunday routine with this squad?
A Nigerian proverb says: “you can’t climb a ladder with objects in both hands.”
I can! And so can The Arsenal!
But fats, the double!
Seriously, right now this feels like league cup level importance. It would be great to win Europa, but there are so many games to go and it’s importance pales in significance to the league priority.
All the noises here seem to point to at least some involvement for Jesus at craven cottage surely 🤞🤞 we will need our forward players returning quickly because this is such a massive week. Win both our games in the league, and whatever City do, we’ll be 8 points clear going into the final international break. Granted they’ll have the game in hand, but what a psychological boost this could be for us. So now more than ever… COYG!!
Craven cottage is just a fucking hilarious name innit…
Tomi to play LB
I wonder whether naughty Kieron wouldn’t be ill if he listened to his mum.
🤣🤣
Turn, Tomy, Hold, Kiwi, Zini, Georgi, Xerox, Vieira, Nelson, Justin Bieber, Martin.
Subs to bring on if needed: Beni, Saka, Partey, Saliba, Gabriel (not Jesus). We need Jesus for Fulham.
A draw tomorrow is not the worst result. We can always go at them with a stronger team at home.
, Wouldn’t risk Zink (rather play Blanco, Hold, Kiwior and Tomy at the back). Would not dream of playing Martinelli especially if Eddie and Leo are certain to miss Sunday game as well.
Jorginho Xhaka and a player from the academy in midfield.
Vieira ESR and Nelson at the front.
Off topic.. police are investigating Kyle Walker for waving around his spuds mascot at random women. Will be interesting to see whether mancs end up having to remove him from team for the run in. Remember that they don’t have Cancelo for rest of the season. We could use any luck that comes our way 😏
My proposed team for Europa-
martinelli/saka (one half each)
nelson
smith-rowe
vierra
xhaka/odegard(one half each)
jorginho
tomi
white/zinny(one half each)
holding
kiwior
smith
6 first team players play one half each to compensate for our 3 injured second team players, who would otherwise have played – nketiah, trossard and tierney.
5 first team players rested – jesus, ramsdale, partey, saliba, gabriel – or can be brought in at the very end.