Arsenal’s Arteta cautious on Saka, Saliba fitness for Chelsea clash

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta gave few clues on Friday as to whether Bukayo Saka and William Saliba have recovered from injury to face Chelsea in the Premier League this weekend and will assess them in their final training session.

Saka did not join England for October’s fixtures after picking up an injury in their Champions League defeat by Lens, which saw him miss Arsenal’s win over champions Manchester City before the international break.

Defender Saliba (toe) and forward Leandro Trossard (hamstring) have added to Arsenal’s concerns, having pulled out of international duty with France and Belgium respectively.

“I’m sure (Saka) wants to play,” Arteta told a press conference but did not confirm if the winger was available, adding there were “not a lot” of team updates he could share.

“We haven’t had a lot of players. We’re going to do our first training session today and we’ll know more after the session,” Arteta said.

The manager added that he hoped Saliba’s ongoing toe issue would not affect him long-term.

“Hopefully not,” Arteta said. “He’s been carrying that for weeks now. We had to use that time to settle and we believed it was the best moment to do that.”

Substitute forward Gabriel Martinelli fired Arsenal to a last-gasp 1-0 win at home to City, helping them beat Pep Guardiola’s side for the first time since 2015 in the league.

The win, ending Arsenal’s longest winless streak against a single opponent in league history, saw Arsenal leapfrog City into second place, level on 20 points with Tottenham Hotspur.

Arteta has yet to lose at Stamford Bridge since he took charge of Arsenal in December 2019 and a psychological boost from the City win could help them extend their unbeaten run.

“It’s the last experience that we had and that feeling we had between us was a beautiful one,” Arteta said.

“You could sense in the atmosphere the importance of the game and the way we competed as a team.

“But it’s just a game. Now it’s about having the consistency and keeping standards very high because the next game against Chelsea is going to be even harder.

“I’ve been really impressed by Chelsea. I think they deserve much more than what they’ve got in the table. What Mauricio has done in a short time is phenomenal. Well have to be at our best tomorrow.”

Chelsea are down in 11th on 11 points from eight games.