Mikel Arteta awaiting update on injured Arsenal defender

Forum 1 year ago

Mikel Arteta awaiting update on injured Arsenal defender

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is waiting to find out the severity of the injury picked up by defender Takehiro Tomiyasu in the Europa League on Thursday.

The 24-year-old full-back replaced Ben White after 73 minutes of Arsenal's clash with FC Zurich, but limped from the field just a couple of minutes later.

Tomiyasu missed around two months of action last season with a calf problem, but has come back into Arsenal's side this season at left-back - seemingly becoming Arteta's preferred option ahead of Scotland international Kieran Tierney.

Arsenal have a heavyweight clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday to contend with, but Arteta is awaiting news on Tomiyasu before deciding whether or not he'll be part of his plans.

“We don’t know [what the issue is]. He felt something and we didn’t want to take any risks," Arteta said. "With the amount of games that we’re playing, it’s part of it. It can happen in training, it can happen in games and unfortunately, it happened to Tomi.

“The rest of the players have to be ready because we’re going to need everybody now. We have managed the load of the players in the last four weeks because of the amount of games that we have played.

“It is very difficult to get the balance and to get the right performances and win matches, and resting some players and keeping them fresh is always challenging, we have tried to do our best. Today we had bad news with Tomiyasu, but I think for the rest it has worked pretty well.”

The Gunners are currently top of the Premier League table after picking up ten wins from their first 12 Premier League games. They are also through to the knockout stages of the Europa League, having topped a group that included PSV Eindhoven, Bodo/Glimt and FC Zurich.