Premier League: Leicester City v Arsenal, Saturday, 12.30pm, Live TNT Sports
Mikel Arteta says he is relishing the challenge of maintaining a Premier League title push despite Arsenal’s growing injury list, insisting it is time to see “what the team is made of”.
Kai Havertz became the latest long-term absentee this week, the German ruled out for the rest of the season after damaging a hamstring during a warm-weather break in Dubai. Arteta said the “unexpected” injury had occurred when Havertz tried to block a free-kick in training but insisted the team’s experiences with adversity would make them resolute over the closing weeks.
“We were having a great camp in Dubai, recharging, training, having some time off and connecting again with nature in a different environment, and then the injury happened in a very unexpected way,” Arteta said. “Certainly it is a big blow because of the injuries that we have but, fortunately, we’ve been through a lot this season.
“We have played without Gabriel Magalhães, without William Saliba, Ben White all season, Takehiro Tomiyasu all season, Ricardo Calafiori for two months, Mikel Merino for two months, Martin Ødegaard for two months, Bukayo Saka for three months, Gabriel Jesus ... all of them. So that’s it, that’s the challenge ahead. I love it and look forward because we are still where we are with all the things I mentioned on top of playing four times with 10 men, blah blah blah. Let’s see what the team is made of.
“We’ve been through a lot and we have sustained the level of performance and results until this point, so we are more than capable of doing it. That’s the only thing that we’re going to be looking at.”
Arteta said he did not intend to hasten Saka’s return to the first team, describing it as “too early”, but denied the England forward had experienced a relapse in recovery from his hamstring injury. “There’s no setback, he’s fine,” Arteta said. White is fit to return to the squad for the first time since Novemberfor Saturday’s early kick-off at Leicester.
By way of further motivation, Arteta watched Liverpool drop points this week, thanks to their late derby draw at Goodison Park. Arteta was on the cover of the programme, in his former life as an Everton midfielder, and said James Tarkowski’s late strike could help change the momentum in the title race.
“When the gap becomes a bit smaller than you expected, it’s always really positive,” he said. “You need that, generating momentum, and the next few weeks are going to be critical as well to understand where we are after the international break, with six or seven weeks to go in the season.
“The [Everton equaliser] helps. It seems like it helps when you see your team performing, what we’ve done in the Champions League and what we’re doing in the league with all the conditions that we’re in – that’s massive belief. The players’ reaction is one that gives me the mood that I’m in, that they want more and they’re not satisfied and they’re not going to stop with that.” – Guardian
