Arsenal host Manchester City this weekend aiming for a third straight home win to start the season, but the squad news is a mixed picture. There are fitness returns across the backline and bench, yet the club still miss their captain in midfield.<\/p>\n
William Saliba\u2019s ankle problem dates back to the warmup before the loss to Liverpool three weeks ago. He tried to continue but went to ground early in the match and Cristhian Mosquera came on. Saliba was an unused substitute against Athletic Club midweek and has now been restored to the starting XI for the first time since August.<\/p>\n
Bukayo Saka is available again after recovering from the hamstring injury suffered in the home opener against Leeds United. He missed multiple games and is named among the substitutes while Noni Madueke keeps the left-side start. Ben White has also returned to the matchday squad after a disjointed start to the campaign as he looks to get fully fit and challenge Jurrien Timber for a place. How many minutes Saka gets remains to be seen, but Arteta would be wise to not push his star winger even with Madueke enjoying a positive start.<\/p>\n
The player still absent is Martin \u00d8degaard. The Norwegian aggravated a shoulder injury against Nottingham Forest last weekend and sat out Arsenal\u2019s European opener. As against Athletic Club in the Champions League, Mikel Merino starts in a workmanlike midfield three alongside Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy shoulder was very sore, but I\u2019ve just been taking it day by day this week, working hard to hopefully be ready in time for today\u2019s game. It\u2019s the same shoulder that I hurt in the Leeds United game, pretty much the same injury again, so it\u2019s just really bad luck,\u201d \u00d8degaard said ahead of the Man City game.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta also opted to start Leandro Trossard on the left wing ahead of summer signing Eberechi Eze. Trossard was an impact substitute in Europe, scoring and assisting after coming off the bench.<\/p>\n
(4-3-3): David Raya; Jurrien Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori; Mikel Merino, Marti Zubimendi, Declan Rice; Noni Madueke, Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Leandro Trossard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal welcome Man City with three fitness returns but Martin \u00d8degaard remains sidelined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[984,826,253],"class_list":["post-2970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-ben-white","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-declan-rice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970","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=2970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}