Arsenal could be boosted by the return of Gabriel as Mikel Arteta’s side kick off the Premier League weekend with a trip to Newcastle on Saturday.
The Brazilian limped off with what looked like a knee issue during last weekend’s draw with Liverpool but, speaking at Friday’s pre-match press conference, Arteta had some good news on the defender.
“We have a training session today. If he can complete that he will be available, he hasn’t had any training sessions yet but if he is able to do that today he will be available for the squad.”
William Saliba returned from suspension to start against Preston North End in midweek, already boosting the backline, but there will be no return for Riccardo Calafiori or Martin Odegaard at St James’ Park, while Ben White is a doubt.
“Riccy and Martin are out, definitely.
“With Ben we don’t know yet, he hasn’t trained yet, he couldn’t train, he couldn’t get involved, so let’s wait and see if he’s available.”
Jurrien Timber started in midweek and will likely play again at Newcastle, with Thomas Partey, Jakub Kiwior, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Myles Lewis-Skelly the candidates to complete the backline if Gabriel or White cannot prove their fitness in time.
Arteta also played down the chances of Takehiro Tomiyasu returning before the upcoming Interlull, and was coy about Odegaard’s chances of making the trip to Milan next week.
“Now is the stage when he’s going to start to do certain work with us, and just see how he deals with pain,” he said.
“Is his movement natural enough? Is he physically now at the level that requires him to compete? With the work and the hours that he’s put in, I would be surprised if the moment that he starts training with us you don’t say, he looks ready.
“So, hopefully soon.”
Kiwior should be given a chance to continue at Left centre back.
Not if Gabriel is fit!!
I think he means maybe just for one more match to give Gabi time to fully recover and not risk him
Big Gabby is even more important than Saliba because of the threat he poses to other teams in offensive corners.
Well said. I think Kiwior is not a monster physically like Big Gabi or not as dynamic going forward like Calafiori but he is still very good owerall.
It’s not a coincident that his market value is still rising.
The one that actually worries me the most is Benjamin. What actually is his injury?
It feels like he’s been not quite fit fort the majority of the season. Even when he has played he hasn’t looked right.
It seems like a really weird one. Not serious enough to have proper time on the sidelines but obviously it is keeping him out of the starting XI.
Get well soon brother. The team misses the deft touch of your shithousery.
To be fair, it seems he was injured whole season last year but played through so I guess now we’re a bit more careful with him since Jurrien/Partey can take his place if needed.
The load on him last season was unbelievable. I can only speculate but this type of situation tends to arise when there’s a chronic stress injury that flares up when the load goes up. The club have a decision to make now. They can make him through it like they are doing and hope it eventually gets better or they bite the bullet and have him do a procedure if there is one to do. Smith Rowe went through something like this before they finally pulled the trigger on his surgery.
“Pulled the trigger on surgery”
Can’t believe they are still letting Dr Dre preform these ops…
Guys. He’s not a real doctor.
This is such a boomer joke.
Hopefully as we get Tomiyasu and Calafiori fit along with a fit Timber Arteta can do plenty of rotation and hopefully give White the rest he needs to get close to 100%. That obviously wasn’t an option last year for him very often.
I love Timber. You can see his quality and skill level every time he plays. Fitness level will get there
Is it just me or do others feel like he needs to improve his attacking play? Strong defensively but always seems to misplace his attacking pass.
Bear in mind I also said Cesc was too slow for Prem when I first saw him, decided Kai was a rubbish buy after one game and Sterling would hit the ground running. Openly a rubbish judge.
He’s not been very efficient but that’s partly because he’s pretty ambitious and tries a bit too much to be creative imo, when it does pan out he ends up creating real threat. I think the technique and vision is there he just needs to simplify things a bit and learn to pick and choose the best times to be creative.
If you think your takes have been bad, I thought Thierry Henry was “just a pair of legs” when we signed him.
To be fair I said the same about my wife!
I think Timber is quite limited in an attacking sense when playing on the left but very dangerous when he plays ok the right
Timber’s impact comes in the first two thirds, not the final third, not yet. If you watch how he gets the team up the pitch, it’s phenomenal. He can do it with a pass or his movement to receive or he can just carry it himself.
Riccy Martin, both out.
I know what you did there Blogs 😏
Un Dos Tres nil to the Arsenal
Weirdly I’m less worried about LCB as I think Kiwior can do a great job deputising for Gabi there, than I am about the fullback positions. White and Timber are by far our most defensively and offensively dependable full backs so far and in the absence of either of them we seem to always be trying to plug a hole with chewing gum. I guess if White is out it will be Partey at RB and Timber at LB and that’s the most defensively solid we can do, but offensively it makes us so much more predictable and lame and… Read more »
Kiwior did a great job deputizing for Gabi at lcb??
Is it the same kiwior who has been shit or we signed another kiwior that I am not aware of??
He did excellent job last season playing LB position for multiple games, really don’t need to remind an arsenal fan about this!
We played Timber LB and Thomas RB vs Liverpool, worked out pretty well. What happened in that game was that Thomas came way inside when we had the ball to overload them centrally, and Havertz peeled outside to the right touchline to create a 2 v 1 with Saka versus Robertson. So Saka’s partner in attack was really Havertz. TP didn’t overlap much and I think that’s intentional to save his legs. There’s more to that story but the point is there was no fundamental limitation with TP/Saka, in fact they both had really good games for us. If we… Read more »
fair point, guess I was looking for it in more traditional RB overlapping and such, the type that Ben does that seems to really activate Saka and which Partey hasn’t done at all. If Havertz is taking on that role, well he’s still not quite the pinpoint creative passer that White is nor the speedy overlapper, but close enough and he does other things well to make up for it.
I had severe doubts last week on Partey being able to cope at RB with Diaz. Man, was I wrong. I feel good going in with him covering for White as long as he plays his game the same way ie: don’t be trekking too far forward with those 31 year old legs….
Only Arsenal could have arguably the deepest defensive squad in the league and still be short 😩
Kiwior is becoming the new Ramsdale. There always has to be one.
? How’s that doc?
He’s the low impact squad player who the loudest fans love to talk about. he’s either completely crap and should be given away in the next transfer window or totally awesome but shafted by a stubborn manager who can’t see his greatness. There’s always one guy like that.