Mikel Arteta admitted Arsenal were forced into a risky situation on Saturday when William Saliba remained on the pitch for the full 90 minutes following Ben White\u2019s early withdrawal. With Ben White leaving in the first half there was no way to manage Saliba\u2019s minutes despite the manager\u2019s clear misgivings.<\/p>\n
Arteta said: \u201cWe had to risk Willy,\u201d Arteta fretted. \u201cIt probably wasn\u2019t the best call to play 90 minutes because we were buying tickets for another injury. But we don\u2019t have anybody else. That\u2019s dangerous, for sure.\u201d The comment underlined the strain on Arsenal\u2019s defensive resources.<\/p>\n
Saliba\u2019s return lasted far longer than the manager would have preferred, but the centre back appeared to come through the contest unscathed and will not be required to play again for at least seven days as the club have a short respite. The immediate outlook for White is less clear.<\/p>\n
The right back pulled up clasping the back of his leg as Wolves launched a rare break led by Hwang Hee-chan after an Arsenal long throw. David Raya had to make a save and White, part of the chasing pack, then went off. Arteta said it \u201clooks like a hamstring\u201d and added: \u201cWe don\u2019t know the extent of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the broader cause, the manager blamed overloading of minutes. \u201cObviously he hasn\u2019t played a lot of minutes because of the previous knee issue that he had, then the moment he started to get some momentum he had to play a lot because we didn\u2019t have any other solution,\u201d Arteta moaned.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s defensive list already included Gabriel and Cristhian Mosquera, while Riccardo Calafiori was suspended. That leaves Jurri\u00ebn Timber increasingly relied upon to cover multiple roles; Timber has been useful through the middle but will now be needed at right back until White or Mosquera return to full fitness, which the manager suggested could be well into 2026.<\/p>\n
Current squad injury notes list Gabriel out until late December, Cristhian Mosquera out until early January, Ben White out, William Saliba fit but recently returned, Jurri\u00ebn Timber fit but not 100%, Riccardo Calafiori returning from suspension and Piero Hincapi\u00e9 fit. Myles Lewis-Skelly is also listed as a left back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta warned it was ‘dangerous’ to leave Saliba on for 90 after Ben White’s early injury and cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303],"tags":[1312,984,199],"class_list":["post-5081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-ben-white","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5081","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=5081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}