Laurent Koscielny is keen to make his senior Arsenal comeback on Thursday, according to reports, after playing 45 minutes for the u23s on Monday.

Writing in the Evening Standard on Tuesday, James Olley claimed that Koscielny is pushing for a first-team comeback on Thursday. After travelling with the Arsenal squad to Bournemouth last weekend, the club captain is ‘keen’ to join the senior side on their trip to Ukraine.

That would be a major boost to Arsenal, since they only have four fit centre-backs at the moment, and three of them played on Sunday.

Julio Pleguezuelo is an obvious choice to start on Thursday, but it would be helpful to have Koscielny alongside him, at least for part of the match. That way Rob Holding, Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos can rest ahead of the North London derby and the trip to Old Trafford.

Additionally, if Koscielny does make his return without any problems, he’d be an option for that trip to Manchester too.

According to the Standard, Koscielny was assessed yesterday, and Emery will decide whether to include him ahead of the squad’s flight to Ukraine this afternoon. We should know the outcome later today (Wednesday) when pictures of the team boarding the plane emerge.