Mikel Arteta confirms yet another Arsenal blow after star pulls up with injury issue
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Mikel Arteta has confirmed Myles Lewis-Skelly has suffered an injury to add to Arsenal's issues. Lewis-Skelly has emerged as the Gunners' first-choice left-back in recent weeks, having been promoted from the club's academy. His progression came as the result of a major injury crisis which has hit Arteta's squad.
William Saliba missed the draw with Aston Villa with a hamstring issue, while Riccardo Calafiori has missed the last three matches with a muscular injury. Bukayo Saka (hamstring), Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Gabriel Jesus (all knee) and Ethan Nwaneri (groin) all also remain on the sidelines.
In place of Calafiori, White and Tomiyasu, Lewis-Skelly has made 16 appearances for the first team this season. But in another bitter blow, Arteta revealed he picked up an issue in the Villa clash, which forced him to leave training early on Tuesday. "He could not finish the training session yesterday unfortunately. He had an incident during the match against Aston Villa and he wasn’t feeling right yesterday so he could not finish the session," Arteta told TNT Sports.
He added on Calafiori: "The same with Ricci as well, he only trained 20 minutes yesterday. Adapt again like we have done all season and have some freshness in the team which i think is important as well.". With Lewis-Skelly ruled out, Oleksandr Zinchenko lined up at left-back against Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday night. Meanwhile, Jakub Kiwior replaced Thomas Partey in defence, with the Pole taking Saliba's spot at centre-back.
