Arsenal are facing injury concerns, but they aren’t alone ahead of Saturday’s visit of Sunderland.

The Gunners will be without a number of first team players, but so will the visitors. Former Spurs man Jermaine Defoe and former Arsenal academy graduate Seb Larsson were both subbed off in Sunderland’s weekend defeat of Stoke City and won’t be back in time for the game.

Both players missing comes as quite a blow to Sunderland. Defoe is their joint top scorer so far this season with four goals, while Larsson has played in 11 of their 14 Premier League games.

“Jermaine suffered an injury to his hamstring, not his ankle – he felt it go, sadly – and obviously Seb Larsson [has] medial ligaments [issues],” manager Sam Allardyce told the official Sunderland website.

“Hopefully they will be fit as quickly as possible – they probably aren’t going to be fit for next weekend but hopefully the week after.”

Arsenal are sweating on the fitness of Laurent Koscielny and Santi Cazorla, while Alexis Sánchez is also sure to miss the game. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey are back, but Mikel Arteta, Francis Coquelin, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck are still out.

Nonetheless, at least we won’t be the only depleted side on the pitch. Two points behind Manchester City, it’s time to get back to winning ways after picking up just two points from our last three league games.