Sunday\u2019s visit to Manchester City carries enormous significance for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta. The club will however make the trip without Bukayo Saka, who has not featured since the Carabao Cup final defeat to City.<\/p>\n
Saka reported a problem with his Achilles after that match. The 24-year-old had been managing discomfort for some time and, according to the club, reached his breaking point in the cup final, which required a period of rest on the sidelines. While Achilles injuries have attracted attention after Liverpool striker Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 was diagnosed with a rupture and faces an extended layoff, Arsenal have been clear that Saka\u2019s issue is nowhere near as severe.<\/p>\n
\u201cBukayo is out, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d Arteta told the media in the build-up to Sunday\u2019s seismic game. The manager added that Saka is \u201cjust starting to do some stuff,\u201d a comment that suggests the winger has returned to limited work on grass but is not yet ready for full training.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet’s see that progression, how quickly we can go through it, and then wait, but at the moment it’s not about that,\u201d Arteta explained. He placed the emphasis on giving Saka time to recover and on the squad\u2019s ability to cope with absences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had to cope with [injuries] all season and if you look back at the stages and the players that we\u2019ve missed for big, big, big periods and where we are, it\u2019s not normal where we are.<\/p>\n
But we have coped with that because of our mentality and the solutions that we find, the way the players have stepped up in this moment. And we are where we are. We are still very strong and we will remain the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n
There has been no further update on Saka\u2019s condition since he was withdrawn to recover. Arsenal\u2019s near-term schedule includes Newcastle (H) on April 25 in the Premier League, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid (A) on April 29 in the Champions League, Fulham (H) on May 2 in the Premier League, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid on May 5 in the Champions League, West Ham (A) on May 10 in the Premier League, Burnley (H) on May 17 in the Premier League and a fixture against Crystal Palace listed in the schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bukayo Saka will miss Manchester City after reporting Achilles discomfort in the Carabao Cup final..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1084,826,1047],"class_list":["post-12315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-achilles-injury","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}