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
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.
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!
Riccy Martin, both out.
I know what you did there Blogs 😏
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??
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 »