All the news lately has been about which players Arsenal are likely to be without for the season opener against Liverpool, but they are not without their problems themselves.
Unlike Arsenal, they aren’t so much affected by players returning late from the Euros – only Joe Allen and Emre Can have still to meet up with their squad, Allen due back on 22nd July – but they have picked up a few injury concerns.
New signing Marko Grujic missed out on their pre season game against Wigan with a ‘little bit of back problems and was a little bit sick,’ according to Jurgen Klopp.
Joel Matip is, however, more of a concern after picking up an ankle injury. A scan allayed fears that he had picked up a serious problem but the Cameroonian has significant bruising and as we know from Alexis Sanchez’s ankle this summer, that can often take some time to overcome depending on its severity. Liverpool still hope that he will travel with the squad to the US.
Mamadou Sako, who is no longer banned, and Joe Gomez, also picked up Achilles problems. These are another set of problems that Arsenal fans are all too aware of. Laurent Koscielny has been dogged for a couple of seasons with problems in his own and they can be troublesome to resolve.
Liverpool’s next game of pre season is against Huddersfield on Wednesday so we’ll keep an eye on that to see if any of these players make an appearance.