Arsenal injury latest ahead of Monaco clash | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta has confirmed the nature of Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel Magalhaes’ injury issues, ahead of Arsenal’s Champions League clash with Monaco on Wednesday night.

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There was bad news for Arsenal fans in the build up to Wednesday’s game against Monaco, with Kaya Kaynak reporting that Gabriel Magalhaes, Riccardo Calafiori, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jurrien Timber, and Thomas Partey were all absent from Tuesday’s training session.

That doesn’t necessarily mean all of them will miss the Monaco game, but it certainly suggests they’re all in a race against time to make it back.

When asked about the missing players, Mikel Arteta responded: “We have to manage a lot of the players, so they’re probably not going to be fit for tomorrow and are a doubt. I still have 24 hours to make those decisions and hopefully the right ones.”

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Later in the press conference, during the embargoed portion of the questions, Arteta gave some more details on the issues facing Calafiori and Gabriel specifically.

“We need a cage there because [Calafiori] wants to go out, train and play,” Arteta said first. “We need to calm him down because he is so willing.

“It is the way he is, the way he plays. It started with the national team with a kick, then he had the knee issue. After that he lost a lot of things. Because of the injuries he had to play more than we wanted. And then he got the issue in his groin.”

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As for Gabriel, Arteta confirmed the issue is a muscle problem, saying: “Big Gabi has not had a muscular injury [before, but] he is playing a lot now, he is travelling, going to Brazil, he is a starter with Brazil.”

One potential replacement for Calafiori is youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly, who has played at left-back a few times for the first team this season. Though he’s fit right now, Lewis-Skelly himself has been out injured recently, and Arteta explained why.

“The issue that we had is he had an infection in his foot that [caused] him to miss a few weeks,” Arteta added.

“He looks better now, he’s been in training for a week or so and he’s in a good place. He’s a player that can give us a lot.”

As usual, the Arsenal manager didn’t give the public much certainty on which players will or won’t be available on Wednesday night, but Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu are certainly expected to be out.

With Timber, Partey, Gabriel, Calafiori, and Zinchenko, we’ll have to wait and see when the squad is confirmed.