Mikel Arteta offered a measured update on Kai Havertz\u2019s rehabilitation from knee surgery on Friday, praising the player\u2019s progress while withholding any specific return timetable. Arteta described the 26-year-old\u2019s work in training and the steps being taken on the injured knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he’s looking really good. I mean, he’s working freely. He’s starting to load that knee, and start to do some bits.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, as I said before, I think it will take him from weeks to months. But knowing Kai, I cannot give you any timescale, because I know what he’s going to try to do, same with Gabi Jesus. So I think he’s in a good moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very tough decision for him to go and have that procedure done. But I think it was necessary, and it was the right decision from the medical team to persuade him to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta noted that, had the injury occurred last season, the squad would have faced greater difficulty while Gabriel Jesus remained sidelined and Bukayo Saka was also receiving treatment. The recent arrival of Viktor Gy\u00f6keres has eased some of the responsibility on Havertz, who finished last season as the club\u2019s top goalscorer in the Premier League and in all competitions.<\/p>\n
On team selection for Saturday\u2019s match, Arteta confirmed Bukayo Saka will be absent for Nottingham Forest\u2019s trip to the Emirates Stadium but expressed optimism over William Saliba\u2019s condition following an early exit in the 1\u20130 defeat at Liverpool before the international break. Saliba limped off just five minutes into that game, and Arteta suggested he could return straight into the defence.<\/p>\n
Saka\u2019s role on the right is expected to be filled by Noni Madueke. Madueke, the \u00a352 million summer signing, scored for England in midweek as he continued a strong start to the season. On Madueke, Arteta said: \u201cWell, I can talk about what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced and I think the welcoming that our supporters gave to Noni from day one was incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I don’t know other ways that people communicated the disagreement with that, but our supporters they’ve been exceptional and rightly so because he’s an unbelievable player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta: Havertz progressing after knee surgery, no return date; Saka ruled out for Forest. Saliba OK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[947,826,970],"class_list":["post-2737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-ankle-injury","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-england"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737","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=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}