Arsenal will be without Declan Rice for Tuesday\u2019s clash with Aston Villa after the club ruled the 26-year-old out with a knee issue. The Athletic report said Rice is “not quite ready” to feature, and Mikel Arteta left him out of his squad as a precaution to avoid aggravating the problem.<\/p>\n
The club has not provided a specific return date for the midfielder but expect the knee issue to require only a “short-term absence.” Losing Rice before a home meeting with the side that beat Arsenal 2\u20131 earlier this month is a significant setback for the league leaders.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa arrive on the back of an 11-game winning run across all competitions, and any slip by Arsenal could hand Manchester City an opportunity to overtake them should City beat Sunderland on New Year\u2019s Day. The timing heightens the stakes for Arteta\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Some encouraging availability notes for Arsenal: Jurri\u00ebn Timber is in line to return after missing the Brighton game, while Gabriel logged his first minutes in nearly two months at the weekend and is likely to partner William Saliba in central defence. Ben White and Riccardo Calafiori remain sidelined.<\/p>\n
Kai Havertz, who went down with a knee injury following the opening weekend of the 2025\/26 season, will be hoping to make Arteta\u2019s squad for the first time since that setback. For now, Arteta must reshuffle his midfield options and manage the short-term absence of a key figure while preparing for a high-pressure fixture against a Villa side in rich form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Declan Rice ruled out of Aston Villa match with a knee problem; Arsenal expect a short-term absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1305,1304],"class_list":["post-5526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526","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=5526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}