Fulham manager Marco Silva played down suggestions that Arsenal are in crisis because of injuries as his side prepared to host them at Craven Cottage on Saturday. Silva acknowledged Arsenal had fitness issues but argued the squad\u2019s summer recruitment and internal options blunt any widespread concern.<\/p>\n
Asked about the absence of certain attackers, Silva said: \u201cThey don\u2019t have Madueke, they have [Bukayo] Saka, it\u2019s not bad, not bad at all.\u201d He underlined Arsenal\u2019s alternative options when handed another name: \u201cThe other one you said was Havertz? They have [Viktor] Gy\u00f6keres who cost them \u00a375 million. I think it\u2019s a waste of time if you\u2019re going to compare.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the omission of \u00d8degaard was raised, Silva was similarly dismissive: \u201cThey have [Eberechi] Eze who is not bad too. I think you have to move on.\u201d His remarks reflected a view that the Gunners have the personnel to cover for absences without a drop in standard.<\/p>\n
Silva also praised Arsenal\u2019s activity in the transfer market and their response to last season\u2019s problems. \u201cI think it\u2019s clear, with the long-term injury of Gabriel Jesus last season, they didn\u2019t have Havertz, without them it was more difficult,\u201d Silva conceded. \u201cI saw them playing with another player there with [Mikel] Merino, [Leandro] Trossard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had this issue last season with Havertz and Jesus, what they did they saw it, analysed it and signed Gy\u00f6keres. Even with the injury to Havertz and Gabriel Jesus they are ready to start with a striker, and about Saka it\u2019s more or less the same thing, with \u00d8degaard it\u2019s more or less the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they can adapt to these unfortunate moments that all the teams have, like we have right now, probably the worst in my time at the club because we never had both strikers out at the same time, they are showing they have the conditions to handle it and deal with it so the level does not drop.\u201d Silva\u2019s assessment framed Arsenal\u2019s depth as a deliberate remedy to issues exposed last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Silva dismissed claims of an Arsenal injury crisis, highlighting Arteta’s depth and recent signings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,713],"tags":[1081,826],"class_list":["post-3877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-fulham","tag-adaptation","tag-bukayo-saka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877","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=3877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}