Arsenal face a testing run of fixtures without Kai Havertz after the midfielder suffered a fresh muscle problem. The Gunners travel to the Gtech Community Stadium on Thursday as the Premier League\u2019s only scheduled fixture that day, with Arsenal defending a six-point lead at the top of the table.<\/p>\n
Injuries have complicated the manager\u2019s selection options and several first-team players are likely to miss the clash. Havertz, who had returned from a five-month absence, has been forced back into treatment. Since his comeback he has played six games and produced four goal contributions, but progress has now been halted by the new muscle injury.<\/p>\n
BBC Sport report his latest ailment will see him sidelined for at least two weeks. That timeline makes Havertz likely to miss four matches in total for Arsenal: the trip to Brentford, an FA Cup fourth round tie with Wigan Athletic, and subsequent Premier League games against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n
The setback represents another selection headache for Mikel Arteta. During his pre-match press conference he hinted at the possible return of Bukayo Saka and at the prospect of Leandro Trossard appearing after his withdrawal through injury against Sunderland at the weekend, but neither is guaranteed to feature.<\/p>\n
The club will now assess Havertz\u2019s recovery over the coming days as medical staff manage his rehabilitation. For now, the immediate effect is clear: Arsenal must navigate a congested period without a player who had contributed in the weeks following his long layoff. Availability questions around other injured players leave Arteta with decisions to make about formation and personnel as the team aims to maintain its lead at the summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kai Havertz sidelined by a muscle injury; he will likely miss Brentford and three more games ahead..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,728,969],"tags":[1312,1359,1351],"class_list":["post-6840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-brentford","category-premier-league","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-return"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840","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=6840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}