Arsenal will meet Aston Villa on Tuesday night without Declan Rice after the midfielder picked up a knee problem in the weekend win over Brighton & Hove Albion. Rice, a central figure in Arsenal\u2019s season, completed the 2\u20131 victory despite the issue and was used at right back because Jurri\u00ebn Timber and Ben White were unavailable.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta will have to settle for an adjusted lineup. Timber returns at right back to face the in-form Morgan Rogers, while Mikel Merino will partner Mart\u00edn Zubimendi and Martin \u00d8degaard in midfield. Rice\u2019s absence is a setback in a tightly contested title race and will be felt in the engine room, where he has been integral across all competitions this season.<\/p>\n
Rice and the Arsenal staff had hoped he might be fit for the Villa match, but the tight turnaround between festive fixtures led to a conservative decision to omit him from the squad to avoid aggravating the injury. The 26-year-old was able to finish the match at Brighton, but the club made the call to protect him given the schedule.<\/p>\n
Arsenal describe the situation as manageable and do not expect a prolonged layoff. Further tests are scheduled, and the club expect the issue to be \u201cshort-term.\u201d The decision reflects a cautionary approach during a congested period of fixtures and underlines how vital Rice has been to Arteta\u2019s side this season.<\/p>\n
With Timber back and Merino coming into the centre of the park, Arsenal will attempt to maintain momentum against a Villa side emerging as unexpected challengers. The immediate priority for the club will be monitoring Rice\u2019s scans and recovery over the coming days to have their influential midfielder available as soon as it is safe to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Declan Rice misses Arsenal’s match with Aston Villa after knee issue; Timber returns, Merino starts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,711,969],"tags":[1305,1304],"class_list":["post-5533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-aston-villa","category-premier-league","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533","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=5533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}