Bruno Guimar\u00e3es will not make his Premier League debut for Arsenal against Coventry City after an injury ruled him out of Friday\u2019s season opener.<\/p>\n
There had been growing concern over his fitness before the Emirates fixture, and Mikel Arteta did little to shut down the speculation when he spoke on Thursday. The Arsenal manager stopped short of declaring the midfielder fit, saying: \u201cLet\u2019s see how he is,\u201d and adding: \u201cHe\u2019s evolving really well, but let\u2019s see for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time the teams were announced an hour before kickoff, Guimar\u00e3es was not in the matchday squad.<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s starting lineup featured David Raya in goal, with Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori across the defence. Martin \u00d8degaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Declan Rice were named in midfield, while Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz and Christos Tzolis formed the front line.<\/p>\n
On the bench were Kepa Arrizabalaga, Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Eberechi Eze, Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino, Mart\u00edn Zubimendi and Max Dowman.<\/p>\n
In Guimar\u00e3es\u2019s place, Arteta chose the same alteration he had used in the Community Shield by turning to Declan Rice. That decision may not be viewed as a major compromise, given Rice\u2019s standing, but Lewis-Skelly\u2019s continued role remains one of the more notable details of the selection.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00edn Zubimendi, meanwhile, appears to be waiting in reserve after a difficult finish to last season. Arteta acknowledged as much this week, saying: \u201cAt the end, he didn\u2019t play that much,\u201d before adding: \u201cHe still played some important minutes, but no-one can neglect what he did and how important he is for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the timeline for Guimar\u00e3es\u2019s return is unclear. Luke Edwards of The Telegraph was the first to suggest the 28-year-old could be out for \u201ca few weeks,\u201d though that has not been confirmed.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s early schedule is already demanding. After Coventry, they face Aston Villa away, Chelsea at home, a Champions League fixture in the first round of league phase matches, and then Sunderland away. The next few weeks offer little room for error as the season takes shape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guimar\u00e3es is out for Arsenal\u2019s opener, with Arteta turning to Rice and an early run of tough fixtures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1589,172],"tags":[242,180,1980],"class_list":["post-18668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-coventry-city","category-epl","tag-injury","tag-player-news","tag-pre-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18668","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=18668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}