Mikel Arteta provided updates on a quartet of Gunners at his pre-Chelsea press conference on Friday afternoon.
Speaking at Sobha Realty Training Centre, he shared the latest injury news regarding Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino.
On whether Declan – who missed Wednesday’s game at Inter Milan – could play against the Blues at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Mikel said: “I have to be very vague on that one because there’s no clarity on whether he’s going to be fit for the weekend.”
“[Whether he has a broken toe is] for the doctor, what I can say is that he hasn’t trained yet and it is not clear whether he’s going to be available or not to play.”
Every word from Mikel Arteta’s pre-Chelsea presser
One positive to take from this week’s UEFA Champions League action was the appearance of Martin Odegaard, who came on as a substitute at the end of our match in Italy.
“Everybody that is in the squad is going to be fit and available to start the game, so then it will be a decision whether it is too early or the right moment for him to make that step again,” Mikel explained regarding Martin’s involvement against Chelsea.
Lastly, our manager was also asked how Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino are after they both came off against Inter.
“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how they react,” he said. “Kai had quite a nasty cut and he could not continue. With Mikel, to be fair the day before he wasn’t feeling great and we decided to sub him at half-time.”
