Arsenal began the 2025\u201326 campaign facing immediate selection headaches as Mikel Arteta manages another run of early injuries. The club travelled to Anfield before the international break without Bukayo Saka and with Martin \u00d8degaard only fit enough for a bench place. Minutes into that fixture, William Saliba was forced off with an ankle issue.<\/p>\n
Summer signing Cristhian Mosquera stepped in and delivered a composed performance in a low-key game, ensuring Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 didn\u2019t continue his impressive start to life on Merseyside. Mosquera\u2019s display will ease concerns about a defensive collapse in Saliba\u2019s absence, as happened at the backend of 2022\u201323, and the 21-year-old is expected to see significant minutes while Saliba recovers.<\/p>\n
Latest reports suggest Arsenal could be without Saliba for up to a month after he withdrew from the France squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers. If that timeframe proves accurate, Arteta\u2019s side face a congested September without one of their defensive pillars, with five matches scheduled before the month ends.<\/p>\n
Those matches include the home Premier League fixture against Nottingham Forest in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off, and a Champions League opener away at Athletic Club next Tuesday as the competition begins. Saliba has typically gotten the better of Erling Haaland in their head-to-heads, but he is set to miss Manchester City\u2019s visit to the Emirates on September 21.<\/p>\n
He likely would not have featured in the Carabao Cup third-round tie at Port Vale, although Arteta has previously relied on some of his key players in similar cup fixtures. The Gunners have lost their previous three visits to St James\u2019 Park and are poised to be without their No. 2 for the long trip up to Tyneside on the final Sunday of September. Newcastle United may no longer have Alexander Isak in their ranks, but two new additions, Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa, are aiming to make quick early impressions.<\/p>\n
Arteta will need to balance rotation and protection of Saliba while navigating a busy schedule if the month-long absence materialises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saliba could miss up to a month after withdrawing from France, risking a packed Arsenal September…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[947,826,272],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-ankle-injury","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-erling-haaland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575","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=2575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}