Mikel Arteta has indicated Arsenal may have to begin the season without their first-choice defence, with William Saliba and Jurri\u00ebn Timber still several weeks from full availability. Neither defender has featured in pre-season, leaving Arteta to consider different options at the back and, by his own assessment, that situation is likely to continue until the first international break in late September.<\/p>\n
Speaking before Sunday\u2019s Community Shield against Manchester City, Arteta said Timber is making encouraging progress but remains short of a return to full group work. \u201cWe are ramping up now with certain actions and especially the volume and the load, and I think he is on a good trajectory, but there are still a few weeks to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI don\u2019t know [if he will be back before the break]. We have to wait and see. He needs to start training with the group in the next week or so, hopefully, and then see how he progresses from there. It\u2019s been a long-term issue right now, and we want to make sure that every step that we take is the right one, he feels right to do that and he\u2019s such an important player for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saliba, Arteta kept his update brief. \u201cAs we all know, it\u2019s more a long-term injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal have eight matches scheduled before the international break, beginning with Sunday\u2019s meeting with Manchester City. The Premier League title defence starts at home to Coventry City on Friday, Aug. 21, followed by trips to Aston Villa and Sunderland, plus home fixtures against Chelsea and the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion. Their schedule also includes a third-round Carabao Cup tie and the opening match in the Champions League league phase.<\/p>\n
With both defenders still sidelined, Arsenal\u2019s early-season rotation may be shaped as much by absences as by the calendar itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta says Saliba and Timber remain weeks away, leaving Arsenal to adapt early in 2026\/27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303,1067,1647,172],"tags":[1754,1047,242],"class_list":["post-18510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","category-carabao-cup","category-champions-league","category-epl","tag-2026-27-fixtures","tag-champions-league","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18510","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=18510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}