Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Martin Odegaard and Jurrien Timber will miss Tuesday’s game against Bayer Leverkusen, but both are still in contention for Sunday’s League Cup final.
Arsenal are set to be without three players for Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg against Bayer Leverkusen, with Mikel Merino still on the sidelines and Mikel Arteta confirming that Martin Odegaard and Jurrien Timber are also both “out”.
But there’s some more optimism for the League Cup final against Manchester City on Sunday, particularly in Odegaard’s case. Arteta confirmed that the midfielder will be back training with the team in the coming days.
“Yeah (Odegaard is in contention for the final),” Arteta said. “So we’re really pushing, he really wants to try to be available. But we’ll have to wait and see in the next few days, when he trains with the team, how he feels.”
On Timber, Arteta seemed less certain, though he did at least confirm that the current expectation is that the right-back will only be out for days, rather than weeks.
“We don’t know (for the final),” Arteta confirmed. “I think with [Timber] it will be a matter of days, but not sure.”
In Timber’s absence, Arteta may look to call upon Ben White. But after overlooking White in favour of Cristhian Mosquera at the weekend, the Arsenal boss was asked whether White is ready to start games again yet.
“Yeah he’s in a much better place, he’s been very unlucky this season in certain moments,” Arteta revealed. “He had very, very good moments as well throughout the season. He trained today, he feels good.”
Leandro Trossard was also in training on Monday, and Arteta suggests things are looking good for the Belgian winger’s comeback, saying: “He’s okay, he felt good, so he’s available (for Bayer Leverkusen).”
With no other news to report, it looks like most of Arsenal’s squad will be available for a couple of big games this week.