Manchester City received a huge boost as both Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne trained with ahead of their game against Arsenal.
Sane has not featured for City since picking up a cruciate ligament injury back in August in the Community Shield final against Liverpool.
De Bruyne picked up his shoulder problem against Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday and it looked, initially, like he could be facing a significant time on the sidelines like Arsenal’s Kieran Tierney and Sead Kolasinac, who have also suffered shoulder injuries this season.
Mikel Arteta, meanwhile, thinks Shkodran Mustafi and Cedric Soares will be available for selection as Arsenal travel to Manchester City on Wednesday.
Despite the recent injuries to Sead Kolasinac and Lucas Torreira, Arsenal are actually in a pretty good position with injuries at the moment. The likes of Kieran Tierney and Cedric Soares are closing in on a return under Mikel Arteta, and Shkodran Mustafi also looks to be shaking off his recent knock.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Arteta responded to a question about Soares and Mustafi specifically.
“I think they will be available to play,” Arteta said. “Hopefully everybody’s able to train tomorrow and [we’ll] pick the squad the best players we can.”
Getting Soares up to speed is proving more important than first thought. Hector Bellerin is struggling with a groin problem, Ainsley Maitland-Niles is out of favour, leaving Sokratis as a starting full-back.
That’s not ideal, so getting the January loan signing in could make a real difference.
The centre-back position is looking pretty good at the moment, by comparison. Pablo Mari and David Luiz started at the weekend, as did Sokratis (albeit at right-back). Rob Holding is available, so with Mustafi, that’s five options for two positions.
Meanwhile, Tierney’s return offsets the loss of Kolasinac until the end of the month. Between the former Celtic man and Bukayo Saka, Arsenal shouldn’t have any problems at left-back.
As for who will be in charge of the game, it seems PGMOL’s selection machine broke down.