Arsenal face a difficult run of fixtures after Gabriel entered the treatment room during the November international break. While the severity of his injury remains uncertain, early reports suggest that he will be absent for one or two months, potentially missing 15 matches in total. A lengthy absence would be damaging to the club\u2019s hopes over the festive period.<\/p>\n
The schedule on return includes Tottenham Hotspur, Bayern Munich and Chelsea, with further pivotal matches likely to follow. Gabriel has started all of Arsenal\u2019s Premier League and Champions League matches this term, leaving a significant void at centre back.<\/p>\n
Cristhian Mosquera is the most obvious internal replacement. The summer recruit was picked up from Valencia and has featured 12 times this term. The 21-year-old was thrown in early as a replacement for William Saliba and produced impressive displays against Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Athletic Club; two of those appearances ended with clean sheets. Mosquera has earned Arteta\u2019s trust as a ready-made option, though he could be a tad rusty after limited minutes in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Piero Hincapi\u00e9 represents a different profile. Injury restricted him to just five appearances so far for Arsenal, but he represented his country twice over the international break. He has been utilised at both centre back and left back for the second-string side and brings years of experience from Bayer Leverkusen, where he mainly operated in a back three. His left-footedness is useful, and his athleticism and ferocity are attributes that could help against elite forwards in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Riccardo Calafiori can also operate at centre back or left back. He has been selected at left back this season, starting all 11 Premier League matches and rising above Myles Lewis-Skelly in the pecking order. Moving Calafiori from left back poses a risk, and while Lewis-Skelly would have no issues returning to the Premier League XI to allow Calafiori to move centrally, it is a reshuffle that might be worth avoiding in the short term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal will navigate a testing period after Gabriel’s injury with three defensive options available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1047,199],"class_list":["post-4595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-champions-league","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595","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=4595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}