With David Luiz suffering a scare on Thursday, let’s take a look at the latest Arsenal injury news for Wolves this weekend.
Arsenal came through Thursday night’s trip to Molde relatively unscathed, with the exception of David Luiz, whose situation is detailed down below. Let’s take a look at the rest of the Arsenal injury news for Wolves.
Mohamed Elneny and Sead Kolasinac are doubts after testing positive for Covid-19 recently. Meanwhile, Bukayo Saka and Willian picked up injuries against Leeds United and Arsenal are assessing both ahead of Sunday’s game.
Arsenal initially confirmed Saka would be back this weekend, but Arteta then said “it’s very doubtful” he’ll be back in time. So it’s not exactly clear right now.
Thomas Partey is unlikely to make it back for Sunday either, and he’s currently only doing gym work and rehabilitation, rather than rejoining full training.
Calum Chambers is no longer on the injury list at all, as he builds his match sharpness with the Arsenal u23s.
Pablo Mari is finally integrating into full training again. Gabriel Martinelli is also getting closer, working well in group sessions and aiming to rejoin squad sessions in the next two weeks.
David Luiz picks up Molde injury
David Luiz started against Molde in the Europa League group stage clash on Thursday, but he only made it to half time before coming off with an injury. Rob Holding replaced the centre-back for the remainder of the match.
Mikel Arteta spoke about the problem after the game, but he seemed to suggest the injury was nothing too serious.
“We hope that he is okay,” Arteta said. “These surfaces bring different challenges to some players that have issues in their bodies, and it is quite aggressive to play on this surface so we wanted to take zero risk on that. It is okay, he should be fine.”
Arteta was referring to the fact that Molde use an artificial surface for their pitch. It didn’t affect Arsenal’s performance, as they ran out 3-0 winners, but it does bring extra risks on the injury front – particularly if you aren’t used to it.
From the sounds of things, Arteta and his medical team were simply erring on the side of caution. Better to take Luiz off early than lose him for the next few weeks.
The Europa League also uses the same substitution system the Premier League used at the end of the last campaign. If you make a change at half-time, it doesn’t take away one of your three sub breaks in the second half. So it was a sensible time to do it.
Arsenal injury news for Wolves summary
That’s Elneny, Kolasinac, Partey, Mari, and Martinelli likely to miss Thursday’s game, with Luiz, Saka and Willian all doubts. Chambers is also more likely to play in the u23 game on Friday instead.
Check out our Arsenal predicted lineup for Wolves with all these updates in mind.