Mikel Arteta shared updates on the fitness of Jurrien Timber, Mikel Merino, and Ben White on Wednesday night, as Arsenal faced Preston North End in the League Cup.

Arsenal have had plenty of bad news with regards to defensive injuries recently, and there was more to come on Wednesday night before a ball had even been kicked.

Mikel Arteta left Ben White out of his squad for the game, and he explained pre-match that he wasn’t given a choice.

“He was struggling at the end of the (Liverpool) match so he wasn’t available for tonight’s game (against Preston),” Arteta said.

Arsenal fans then grew even more concerned as both Jurrien Timber and Mikel Merino came off at half-time of Wednesday’s match. Timber had also been withdrawn early against Liverpool, leading to fears of an injury setback.

Fortunately, Arteta revealed after the game that both players were always going to come off at the half-time break.

“That was planned,” the Arsenal boss confirmed. “We have a lot of issues in the backline, we wanted to share the minutes because we lost Gabi, we lost Ben [White] as well on top of the other players.

“We wanted to be competitive and we have to make sure as well that we protect players because we have a lot of games coming up now.”

Arsenal had some good news earlier in the week, with reports suggesting Gabriel’s injury is only minor. Riccardo Calafiori is also expected to miss weeks rather than months.

But Calafiori will certainly miss the next game against Newcastle United, and it seems Gabriel is a major doubt as well.

With White’s fitness now also questionable, it was indeed very important to protect Timber from another setback.