Mikel Arteta has dismissed suggestions that Bruno Guimaraes is facing a long spell out with a fresh muscle problem, insisting the issue is far less severe than first feared.<\/p>\n
There had been talk of a layoff stretching to six weeks, and even as long as 10, but Arteta rejected that timeline before kickoff at the Emirates. \u201cNo, no, no, no, no,\u201d he said when those reports were put to him. He added: \u201cWe expect that not to be weeks at all,\u201d before making clear the situation would be assessed over the coming days. \u201cLet\u2019s see how he evolves this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta said Guimaraes is dealing with \u201ca slight tension in his groin.\u201d That description stands in contrast to the more alarming rumours that had circulated earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian\u2019s fitness record has generally been exceptional. During his first six years in European soccer, he missed only eight matches for Lyon and Newcastle. Two of those absences came after a COVID-19 diagnosis, while minor hamstring and ankle issues kept him out for two separate three-game periods in 2022-23.<\/p>\n
That record was interrupted at the start of the year by a serious hamstring injury. Guimaraes missed 14 straight matches between February and April, a period Eddie Howe described by saying he was \u201cdevastated,\u201d. Newcastle also had internal concerns that such a significant setback, so unlike anything that had gone before, could trigger further muscular problems, according to the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n
Arteta, though, did not sound unduly worried. He explained that he and his staff had to stop Guimaraes from playing on Friday for his own protection. \u201cHe wanted to carry on and that\u2019s when you start to understand the character of the player,\u201d the Basque boss said with a grin. \u201cBut I don\u2019t expect that to be a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta has eased fears over Guimaraes, saying the groin issue should not mean weeks out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[242,180],"class_list":["post-18672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18672","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=18672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}