Josh Nichols and Marli Salmon were involved in training and gym work at London Colney on Friday, ahead of Arsenal’s first-team match against Wolves this weekend.
Arsenal youth duo Josh Nichols and Marli Salmon were both at London Colney on Friday, with the two players pictured doing gym work and then Nichols also snapped taking part in the first-team training session.
Salmon may also have featured in the training session, as the pictures aren’t comprehensive. At the very least, he was in attendance and working on his fitness.
The duo’s involvement is perhaps significant, as Nichols is a right-back and Salmon can play at right-back or centre-back, making his first-team debut on the right on Wednesday.
Arsenal are sweating on the fitness of Jurrien Timber, with Mikel Arteta saying his involvement “depends how he feels” during that training session on Friday. If the Dutch international is out of the Wolves match, perhaps one of Nichols and Salmon could be in line to replace him.
But we shouldn’t draw any firm conclusions, as it would be the wise thing to do to include Nichols and Salmon even if the expectation was that Timber would be fit. If there’s even a small chance he might be unavailable, the backup plan needs to be in place in advance.
More than that, Nichols and Salmon have earned their senior training opportunities, and it’s always good to have more bodies to fill out practice matches and so on.
For a proper update on Timber’s fitness, we’ll have to wait for Saturday night’s team news.