We have already described the threat that Leicester City pose to Arsenal’s unbeaten run, and it was hoped that Mikel Arteta would have a fully fit squad to choose from except for our long-term absentee Granit Xhaka.
There was news of a stomach bug that had swept through the team, and on Tuesday Arteta revealed that Odegaard was injured ahead of kickoff, and Pablo Mari was one of those with the tummy bug, and his replacement Ben White also had to be taken off later for the same reason.
But in the pre-match press conference, Arteta has revealed that there are still many players suffering the effects and are yet to even return to training. When asked about the bug, Arteta said: “It was a bit of sickness and just feeling tummy aches and stuff like that,”
“Hopefully today everybody will be okay.
And as for Ben White: “He hasn’t trained yet. We’ll have to wait for today to see how he’s feeling and make the decision.”
And as for the extent of the bug, Arteta continued: “There are a few of them haven’t been able to train. We picked up some knocks during the game against Leeds as well. Hopefully today when everybody’s back, we’ll have better news.”
With less than 24 hours to the game, there is not much time for recovery and training, so I’m hoping it will not have too much effect on his team selection against Leicester.
The Boss was also not feeling confident about having Kieran Tierney back either.He revealed: “He’s progressing in training,” said Arteta. “Let’s see again how he is today. He felt a little bit better the last couple of days but he wasn’t 100 per cent to start the other day. Again, we’ll see what happens…… ”
So, not a lot of positive vibes from the boss there, but that doesn’t mean that everyone won’t be in a better place by tomorrow.
Fingers crossed!