Oleksandr Zinchenko is set to miss Arsenal’s match against West Ham United through injury, picking up a groin issue against Liverpool.

Jordan Campbell of The Athletic reports that Oleksandr Zinchenko will miss Arsenal’s match against West Ham United through injury on Sunday afternoon.

The defender isn’t expected to be out for long, but he picked up a groin problem in the match against Liverpool and Mikel Arteta has decided to protect the Ukraine international for the run-in.

Encouragingly, The Athletic even suggest Zinchenko could be back as soon as Friday, when Arsenal take on Southampton in their next Premier League fixture.

Kieran Tierney is likely to take Zinchenko’s place in the Arsenal starting lineup against West Ham, whilst u21 left-back Lino Sousa’s involvement in first-team training on Saturday suggests he could be in line to make the bench at the London Stadium.

Zinchenko has started every game Arsenal have played in the Premier League in 2023, so his absence is certainly something the team will need to adapt to.

But with games against the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea coming up, Arteta had to make a tough call to keep the player from aggravating the issue.

With William Saliba and Takehiro Tomiyasu already out, Zinchenko’s absence only adds to Arsenal’s defensive squad issues.

The Gunners only have one game a week at the moment, given the exit from the Europa League, but they’re still starting to look a bit stretched ahead of the final run of games.

First things first, Arsenal will be focused on trying to get a result against West Ham without a couple of their usual starters.