Mikel Arteta confirmed a timely boost for Arsenal with Martin \u00d8degaard and Kai Havertz available for selection for Tuesday\u2019s Champions League semifinal second leg against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid. Havertz had missed the first leg in Spain after damaging his hamstring against Newcastle United, a setback that sidelined him for that match. Viktor Gy\u00f6keres has since scored three goals across the subsequent two matches but \u201clacks the craft and guile of his teammate,\u201d leaving Arteta with tactical choices to consider given Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s typical defensive setup.<\/p>\n
Against an opponent likely to press aggressively in spells while affording limited space behind their backline, Havertz is described in the original report as the more natural option through the middle. \u201cWe need options,\u201d the Arsenal boss warned, \u201cwe need the capacity to play different games, whether it\u2019s from the start or after. So it\u2019s really, really good news for us to have them both back.\u201d That flexibility is important for a manager preparing for a two-legged tie.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s preparations have been brightened by the return of those two players. Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s preparations were disrupted on the eve of the match after multiple members of the playing and coaching staff were thought to have been woken at around 1.30 a.m. by fireworks set off outside Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s hotel in east London. A second batch were released 20 minutes later, which convinced club staff this was a targeted approach. MARCA report that the club swiftly complained to UEFA about this interference.<\/p>\n
An additional detail is that Atl\u00e9tico chose to stay in a different hotel to the one they used when they met Arsenal earlier in the Champions League this season. Manager Diego Simeone said this was down to finances while club president Enrique Cerezo laughed it off: \u201cThe economy is the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Off the field Arsenal continue to wait on Jurri\u00ebn Timber. The fullback has not featured since being forced off with a groin problem against Everton in mid-March. Arsenal have lost four of six domestic matches in Timber\u2019s absence, tumbling out of both cup competitions and allowing Manchester City back into the Premier League title race. There is no clear timeline for Timber\u2019s return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00d8degaard and Havertz available; Atl\u00e9tico staff woken by fireworks outside their hotel before match..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1035],"tags":[1312,1359,1569],"class_list":["post-13644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-atletico-madrid","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-injury-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644","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=13644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}