Arteta issues fitness update ahead of United clash

Mikel Arteta has revealed a few of his players haven’t been able to complete full training sessions since Saturday’s 5-2 win at West Ham and that a late decision will be made on their availability for tomorrow’s clash with Manchester United at the Emirates. 

While the manager wouldn’t name names in his pre-game press conference, he was without Thomas Partey and Mikel Merino at the weekend and decided to prematurely withdraw both Gabriel Magalhaes and Riccardo Calafiori. It’ll be interesting to see if the quartet make the squad. 

“We’re going to have a meeting this afternoon,” Arteta told the press on Tuesday afternoon.  

“We have done a training session. We have monitored and kept a few away from certain activities. After that meeting, I will decide which one is fit and available and who starts.”

He added: “They all want to play.”

Having climbed up to second in the table courtesy of back-to-back wins, the Gunners will be hoping to keep the heat on Liverpool after Arne Slot’s side reestablished a nine-point lead with a 2-0 win over the flailing Manchester City. 

Arteta hopes autumn’s blip in form is old news: “We hope that we have [put that behind us]. Obviously, the schedule and circumstances that we had, we have to adapt to that.

“We still competed really well but we didn’t have the results consistently that we wanted. We’re in a good run. We have good momentum again now and we have a big, beautiful match tomorrow night.”

After replacing Erik ten Hag with Ruben Amorim last month, it’s hard to gauge the threat posed by Manchester United. A draw against Ipswich was followed by a 3-2 win over Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League before Everton were despatched 4-0 on Sunday. 

While summer signing Leny Yory could return to the squad following the injury he picked up against Arsenal in a pre-season friendly, the Reds will be without both Lisandro Martinez and Kobbie Mainoo due to suspension.