Mikel Arteta gave updates on Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice’s injury concerns on Sunday, with Arsenal defeating London rivals Chelsea 2-1 to keep their Premier League title hopes going.
Arsenal had new injury concerns both before and after Sunday’s Premier League clash with Chelsea, and Mikel Arteta gave updates to the media on the two situations.
Starting with Martin Odegaard, the midfielder was a surprise absentee from the squad, with Arteta explaining: “Unfortunately Martin is still not feeling totally comfortable with that knee injury, and we decided not to risk him.”
Simon Collings of the Standard clarified that it’s the injury Odegaard picked up against Brentford on February 12th still causing him problems.
The 27-year-old sat out of the games against Portsmouth and Wolves before returning as a sub against Spurs, but he’ll now be a doubt for Wednesday’s game against Brighton.
Then Declan Rice came off earlier than planned in the 76th minute, with Arteta admitting the midfielder needs to be assessed ahead of the Brighton game.
“Declan has to be substituted so he’s going to have to get checked and see if he’s available for Wednesday, unfortunately,” Arteta confirmed. “And the rest [are] hopefully okay. But we don’t know.”
Rice didn’t go down the tunnel after his substitution, which is usually a good sign. Analysis of the footage also shows no obvious indicators of the nature of the problem, though it’s likely it was muscle tightness given it seemed to occur after a sprint.
With Arteta believing everyone else involved in the Chelsea game to be fine, Arsenal’s only other injury problems are Mikel Merino’s long-term foot injury and Ben White’s recent knock.
White is expected to be back before long, but it’s unclear exactly when, so he’s another doubt for Wednesday’s game.