Ipswich Town are in a strong situation with injuries ahead of Tuesday night’s match against Arsenal, but a couple of players likely to miss the match.
Gary O’Neil certainly doesn’t have an injury crisis on his hands at Ipswich Town at the moment, and he used his pre-Arsenal press conference to highlight that he’s actually struggling to include everyone in his squad.
“Really tough leaving out Darnell [Furlong] and Anis [Mehmeti] from the matchday squad [on Saturday],” O’Neil admitted.
“Doing things like that to good people is tough, it’s one of the toughest parts of the job.
“But I have faith in them, it’s just everyone’s fit at the moment. And we’ve had to recruit a strong squad to get us through an unbelievably challenging season.
“Chuba [Akpom] missed out last week, but he [was] back on the bench [on Saturday].”
The only Ipswich players who are likely to miss Tuesday’s game against Arsenal are midfielders Jack Taylor and Azor Matusiwa, neither of whom have been involved at all for the team so far this season.
Winger Jaden Philogene and midfielder Florentino were also recent injury absentees, but they both returned to action in the weekend win over Crystal Palace.
As O’Neil mentions, one of the players fit to face Arsenal is Chuba Akpom, who previously represented the Gunners himself.
Akpom’s one senior goal contribution for Arsenal was in the League Cup in 2016, but this would be his first game playing against his former team.
On the Arsenal end, all the injury doubts are on the defensive end.
William Saliba is out, Cristhian Mosquera should be back but remains a doubt, and Ben White’s situation is unclear. He limped off with what seemed to be a left groin problem on Saturday.
All in all, both squads should be in a good position to name a full senior side, with few youth call-ups required.
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