Mikel Arteta has given an update on his squad ahead of Arsenal’s match against Manchester City, primarily discussing William Saliba and Granit Xhaka.

• William Saliba remains unavailable for Arsenal due to ongoing back injury recovery, with no significant improvement
• Granit Xhaka’s participation in the match against Manchester City is uncertain, after he recently missed a game due to illness
• Mikel Arteta hopes Xhaka can train on Tuesday

Arsenal are set to face Manchester City in a Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday, and there have been doubts about the availability of starting pair William Saliba and Granit Xhaka ahead of the fixture.

Reports in the last few days suggested Saliba would be unavailable for the match as he continues to try to recover from injury, and Mikel Arteta confirmed this news in his press conference.

“There’s not been real improvement, unfortunately, on him,” Arteta said. “So we are still waiting, we are still hopeful but obviously it’s another week that has gone by and he hasn’t been able to train with the team.

“At the moment, we don’t have him. We are preparing for this game without him, and next game obviously is probably going to come too close as well. So we have to go week by week.”

As for Xhaka, the midfielder missed Arsenal’s last game with an illness. Though Arteta confirmed he was hoping the Swiss international would be able to train on Tuesday, he admitted Xhaka is still a doubt for the game.

“Granit has been out, hopefully he will be able to train today but he’s still a doubt,” Arteta said. “The rest are okay!”

On Xhaka, you’d hope that Arteta is just playing it safe, not wanting to give the fans any false hope on the off-chance the illness drags on.

Usually, a few days is enough to get a player back in training and ready for match action after illness, so you’d expect Xhaka to be involved on Wednesday.

As for Saliba, it seems there’s no chance of the defender returning to the pitch for competitive match action anytime soon.