After the Liverpool game, it was almost certain Arsenal had a defensive injury crisis. Injury prevented Gabriel and Jurrien Timber from finishing that 2-2 draw.
If the two were to be injured, they were to join Riccardo Calafiori and Takehiro Tomiyasu in the treatment table.
On Wednesday night versus Preston in the Carabao Round of 16, the expectation was Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta would give the youngsters a chance to play, so the key players wouldn’t be missed much.
But looking ahead to the weekend game, how were Arsenal going to survive without their key defensive options?
Well, speaking on his pre-match press conference, Mikel Arteta may have dropped some positive news about his defence.
He revealed:
On Gabriel: “We are still assessing him. It doesn’t look bad at all. It was much better the next day. He has done some tests.
On Timber: “Jurrien was fine. He was too tired to continue the game. Not an injury there.”
On Calafiori: “Out for a few weeks.”
From those claims, I can’t help but feel that come Saturday afternoon, Mikel Arteta could still have a strong defence to play.
Hopefully Gabriel will be fit by then. With Timber Fine, William Saliba returning from suspension, Ben White being fit, and Thomas Partey continuing to do a great job at right back, the Arsenal defense could be strong enough to thwart anything the Newcastle attack throws at them.
What do you think?
Daniel O
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I will wait and see what lineup we have, and see how they play in both halves.
It’s not just the injuries, but our performances as a team have been lacking in many games this year.
Some of that can be chalked up to a tough starting PL schedule list, some injuries to key players. Even so, the depth we acquired is not producing, some players appear to be regressing, and our tactics could deal with a reboot.
We need a strong performance this weekend, we need a statement type game, or else another draw or loss could see us fading in the title race.
Already we have to be perfect and City lose 2 games, I don’t want to be in a position where we need to win every game and hope City lose 3.