Arsenal head to the St Mary’s Stadium this weekend to take on Southampton but Mikel Arteta will miss some very important players for this Premier League tie.
The Gunners have been rocked with some major injury news in the past couple of weeks and it looks like the negative updates are just piling up for their manager.
Kieran Tierney has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury and Arteta has now hinted that midfielder Thomas Partey could also be on the sidelines for some time.
While updating on the Arsenal injury list, Mikel Arteta admitted: “The news that we got after a lot of assessments[regarding Partey’s injury] is not great. It’s not looking very positive for his availability this season, but we’ll have to wait and see because he’s trying to get back as quickly as possible, but at the moment we are not very optimistic about it.
“In the moment it’s not ideal[the injury scenario] and we knew that towards the end of the season one of the key elements was going to be having the team available and squad available as much as possible, and we have quite a few issues with him and Tomiyasu as well, but we need to continue to compete and work in the best possible way.”
If this was not bad enough then Alexandre Lacazette has also missed training and there’s a small chance that he too could be unavailable on Saturday.
Mikel Arteta added: “Obviously there are private reasons that I cannot comment on, but I have no other team news to give other than the guys we have discussed.
“We will see if he’s available. It’s a good possibility that that’s the case.”
🗣 “There are private reasons that I cannot comment on.”
Mikel Arteta’s response to Alexandre Lacazette missing recent training sessions. #SOUARS
— Connor Humm (@TikiTakaConnor) April 15, 2022
By the looks of it, Lacazette should not be an issue for the Southampton game but the absence of Partey, Tierney and Tomiyasu will be major headaches for the Gunners boss.
With Thomas Partey missing, the midfield area will be an area of vulnerability for Arsenal and if Southampton can take control of that area of the pitch then the North London side could very easily be staring at another defeat.
Southampton and Arsenal are both low in confidence at the moment so this should be a pretty evenly matched affair. While the Saints are winless in their previous five outings, the Gunners have lost three out of their last five matches.
