Speaking at Friday’s press conference, Mikel Arteta confirmed that William Saliba and Jurrien Timber are “okay”, despite the defensive duo missing Champions League action due to niggles.
“Yeah, they are okay. Obviously, they have played a lot of minutes. They’ve been carrying a few niggles and was a really good opportunity for us to offload them a little bit and refresh them.” – Mikel Arteta on William Saliba and Jurrien Timber
- READ MORE: Press conferences for Gameweek 24
He also said there are no fresh concerns from Wednesday’s win over Kairat Almaty.
“No, we didn’t have any surprises there, and hopefully everybody will train well today and be available for tomorrow.” – Mikel Arteta
That leaves Max Dowman (ankle) as the only known absentee.
“It will be a little bit more [serious] than Mosquera’s [recent injury]. Obviously, he’s growing, and we need to be very careful and a little bit more protective. It’s true that he has a different schedule as well because he needs to go to school and that, so we need to respect a lot of things throughout that process. But I think he’s quite close. He’s on the pitch now, he’s doing well and hopefully we’re going to be able to see him soon.” – Mikel Arteta on Max Dowman
Meanwhile, the Gunners welcomed back the fit-again Riccardo Calafiori and Kai Havertz to their starting XI in midweek.
“Riccy has been instrumental, in the way especially that we attack, and he has unique qualities to occupy spaces and to create things that, probably, the qualities of the other full-backs are different. So, when we need them, they will be there. Now he’s fit, he’s available, and we’ll have to wait and see when we can use him.” – Mikel Arteta on Riccardo Calafiori
“He is ready [to start more matches]. Obviously, he started the other day. It’s been a long period and now we need to manage that load and the games that we’re going to select for him to start. But there was no reaction to that, I think it was super positive, you could see straight away the impact that he can have in the team. So yeah, he’s ready.” – Mikel Arteta on Kai Havertz


