Mikel Arteta confirmed on Friday that Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es will be sidelined \u201cfor weeks\u201d after sustaining an injury while with the Brazil national team. The manager said further scans are scheduled and that a clearer timeline is expected next Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cGabi unfortunately picked up an injury with the Brazil national team and he\u2019s going to be out for weeks,\u201d Arteta said in his Friday press conference. \u201cWe need to have another scan next Wednesday, and we\u2019ll have the timeline probably much clearer than we have at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clearly a blow because he\u2019s our leader in our backline and, to me, it\u2019s never a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabriel\u2019s absence is likely to affect selection for a busy run of fixtures that includes Tottenham Hotspur in the north London derby, Bayern Munich in the Champions League and Chelsea the following week. Arteta has options among his summer recruits and squad members while the club waits for the updated medical picture.<\/p>\n
Piero Hincapi\u00e9, on loan from Bayer Leverkusen, is among the frontrunners to start. Hincapi\u00e9 was hampered by a groin issue at the start of his spell but has recovered to make four appearances across all competitions. After completing the full 90 minutes in two friendlies for Ecuador during the November period, he could be handed a starting role against Spurs.<\/p>\n
Cristhian Mosquera, signed from Valencia over the summer, remains another centre back option. The 21-year-old previously stood in for William Saliba and is considered more natural on the right-hand side of a centre back pairing, making Hincapi\u00e9 the likelier direct replacement for Gabriel given his left-footed profile.<\/p>\n
Riccardo Calafiori could be shifted inside from left back, though an early exit from Italy\u2019s November camp has cast doubt over his availability. Arteta confirmed Calafiori has not trained yet with the team. If Calafiori is unavailable, Myles Lewis-Skelly could come into the side at full back.<\/p>\n
Current squad statuses listed by the club include: Gabriel \u2014 Out; Riccardo Calafiori \u2014 Doubt; Martin \u00d8degaard \u2014 Out; Viktor Gy\u00f6keres \u2014 Doubt; Noni Madueke \u2014 Out; Kai Havertz \u2014 Out; Gabriel Martinelli \u2014 Out; Gabriel Jesus \u2014 Out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta confirms Gabriel will be out for weeks; Hincapi\u00e9, Mosquera and Calafiori options for defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1033,1047,199],"class_list":["post-4607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-brazilian-football","tag-champions-league","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607","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=4607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}