“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.
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”.
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.
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.
