Mikel Arteta confirmed that Bukayo Saka was withdrawn from the squad for Saturday\u2019s win over Leeds United after picking up “a little niggle” in the warm-up. The injury was the only notable setback on a positive day for Arsenal ahead of the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea.<\/p>\n
“He wasn\u2019t comfortable to start the game, so immediately we made a decision to make that change and bring Noni in,” Arteta said, explaining the decision to replace Saka before kick-off.<\/p>\n
Squad depth on the right flank was a specific objective for the club during the summer transfer window. Arteta has been open about his intention to assemble multiple high-quality options in every position, and securing a reliable deputy for Saka was part of that plan.<\/p>\n
Arsenal agreed a package worth as much as \u00a352 million ($71.4 million) to sign Madueke from Chelsea, and circumstances provided an early opportunity when Saka was sidelined earlier in the season. While the headline goal-and-assist figures have not matched expectations, Madueke has “undoubtedly passed the eye test this season,” contributing when called upon.<\/p>\n
Arteta praised the new arrival for his attitude and preparation. “The way he prepares, the way he\u2019s waiting for opportunity, I think he paid off today because he really impacted the team,” the manager said, highlighting Madueke\u2019s readiness to fill the role.<\/p>\n
On the collective task, Arteta added: “We talked before the game, it\u2019s going to be a long game, we\u2019re going to have to navigate through different moments in the game, and we\u2019re going to need everybody fulfilling the role that they have on the day, and I think the players executed that incredibly well.”<\/p>\n
Madueke is the leading candidate to occupy the right wing when Arsenal face his former club on Tuesday, though Arteta\u2019s squad contains several possible options for the position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta: Saka had a warm-up niggle; Madueke responded when called, with Chelsea tie on Tuesday. Read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1067],"tags":[826,1066],"class_list":["post-6375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-carabao-cup","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6375","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=6375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}