Mikel Arteta sounded optimistic when he was asked about Arsenal’s injury situation ahead of Sunday’s trip to West Ham United.
The manager wasn’t able to call on Gabriel Jesus for the win over Liverpool – the Brazilian nursing a knock to his knee – and also had to substitute Bukayo Saka in the closing stages after he took a kick to his ankles.
“We have a few who are still in contention as they’ve been evolving really well,” Arteta said in his pre-game press conference.
“Tomorrow we have another training session and we are hopeful that we’re gonna have a few back and we can put again a very competitive squad out there.”
On Saka, he added: “He’s been recovering this week and he looks ok.” He was slightly vague on Jesus’ situation – “no update” – but we get the feeling the striker could return for the Hammers.
Having suffered a setback in his recovery from a thigh problem, Thomas Partey is again edging closer to a return although he won’t be in contention for the weekend.
“He’s progressing really well, but it’s a bit too soon to tell you exactly when we’re going to have him back,” said the boss.
Following Japan’s exit from the Asian Cup, Takehiro Tomiyasu is available again for selection. Long-term absentees, Jurrien Timber and Fabio Vieira continue their rehab following surgery.
A slight digression…Something about moyes that seem to scramble arteta’s brain each time he comes up against his old manager. First, he praises moyes profusely to the point he’s almost drooling. Then the softness seems to be transmitted to the team who then go in to play shit against West Ham. Whatever the situation on injuries, beating West Ham on Sunday is a must!
Arteta praises everyone but the officials. He has mad respect for the jobs people do in this competition. We’ve only lost once to West Ham in the past 3 years in the league. I think the key on Sunday is getting an early goal — it worked wonders against Liverpool, and I think it is fundamental to our win percentage. Last season, we flew out of the blocks every game and in the first half of the season, we scored early — this opened the game up, which made it look more exciting than this season. This season, we’ve not… Read more »
Maybe I should have qualified my overall comment with “in recent games”. Maybe I’m reading too much into MA’s comments about Moyes. That said, I do agree with you regarding the first goal.
Apologies for coming back to this late. Had to get back to work after dropping the initial comments
Hasn’t Arteta beaten Moyes in pretty much every game they’ve played? And we even spanked them stats-wise when they beat us this season.
I think Arteta is simply a better coach than Moyes and it shows every time we play them.
Before the 2 defeats this season Arteta’s record against West Ham was 5 wins and 2 draws in the previous 7 matches, so your comments are nonsense
Wow, it seems you have serious difficulty disagreeing with someone without being rude.
I’m envious of you, V: your downvotes are at a Fatgooner-ese level! It’s obvious that Arteta has a great deal of respect for his old boss, and that’s nice. For me David Moyes has had a great career as a mid-table manager. He’s been very solid. Actually, I’m pretty confident that we’ll beat West Ham on Sunday. We were very unlucky to lose to them a few weeks ago and we owe them one. Playing away to weaker teams suits us better. They’ll have to attack more and we can hit them on the break. I’ll go for 3-1 to… Read more »
Commendable self-reflection there Fats boyo! Although, not so much on the linguistic front… surely, it must be Fatgooner-esque, rather then -ese.
You’re quite right, Goonshow.
I’m slipping: age must be catching up with me.
Lol, I’m not bothered about downvotes as most of them are purely driven by the band wagon effect at play here most often. I focus on the dissenting viewpoints if they’re valid or not. Hope we beat W/ham on Sunday – that’s the most important thing now.
Great attitude. I just say it as I see it, and if that upsets people then I don’t care.
Two losses and a draw in the last three games says you have some sort of point, so this needs putting right in a big way come Sunday.
Arteta is a very respectful coach and praises all managers. Your submission doesn’t hold water.
Before our last 2 games against WH, Arteta vs Moye was 7 games in which he won 5 and drew 2.
Imagine if Arsene Wenger was still a managing another team and Arteta has ti play against him.
What you do expect Arteta will say about him?
Are you happy enough? Or was Mikel too respectful to Moyes?
We really need to move on from Partey this summer. He’s not kicked a ball all season and the £250,000 we pay him every week should be spent elsewhere. I’d be happy to replace his spot with Lokonga / whichever academy CM looks the best, given they’d effectively be 3rd choice at both LCM and CM.
Lokonga seems much more mature recently. Is there a correlation between his return from injury and Lutons streak of decent games?
I sometimes feel, it’s not our job to balance the books, rather to enjoy the players we’ve got. If and when he goes then I’m sad to say goodbye, he’s been superb. For now I look forward to seeing him play again.
Did he say anything about Zinchenko?