The run-in to the 2025\/26 season is being shaped as much by fitness concerns as form, with a long list of absentees and doubts ahead of Gameweek 28.<\/p>\n
Arsenal suffered an early scare at Tottenham when Bukayo Saka was withdrawn in the warm-up to the match but walked off with ease. He remains a doubt for the visit of Chelsea. Ben White and Kai Havertz were unavailable for the north London derby; both appear likely to return from knocks but are not guaranteed for Sunday. Arsenal have two confirmed absentees: Max Dowman (ankle) and Mikel Merino (foot).<\/p>\n
Chelsea face several fitness problems for the trip to the Emirates. Marc Cucurella and Jamie Gittens will miss out with hamstring issues. Levi Colwill has been absent all season with an ACL injury. D\u00e1rio Essugo is back in training but is unlikely to feature yet. There are doubts over Filip J\u00f6rgensen and Est\u00eav\u00e3o, the latter ruled out of the Burnley draw with a hamstring complaint.<\/p>\n
Liverpool struggled for creativity in a 1\u20130 win at Nottingham Forest after Florian Wirtz injured his back in the warm-up at the City Ground. Arne Slot had initially expected him back for the meeting with West Ham United but has now admitted he has \u201cno idea\u201d when we will see Wirtz again. Jeremie Frimpong could return after a five-game groin absence, while Conor Bradley is out for the season and Wataru Endo is sidelined.<\/p>\n
Alexander Isak is expected to return around the March international break after breaking his leg before Christmas. Giovanni Leoni is another long-term absentee after tearing his ACL on his debut.<\/p>\n
Manchester City remain limited by long-term absences to Jo\u0161ko Gvardiol and Mateo Kova\u010di\u0107. Max Alleyne is a doubt after an early withdrawal in the FA Cup fourth-round win over Salford City, and J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku is not guaranteed to be ready for the trip to Leeds United.<\/p>\n
Manchester United were without Lisandro Mart\u00ednez for a 1\u20130 win at Everton; he could also miss the visit from Crystal Palace, the fixture in which he tore his ACL last February. Matthijs de Ligt has been absent since the end of November and Patrick Dorgu is receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
Tottenham will miss nine players for Gameweek 28, including Mohammed Kudus, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur. Bruno Guimar\u00e3es is a major miss for Newcastle United as they chase continental qualification. Sunderland may be without Brian Brobbey and Nordi Mukiele for their match with Bournemouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gameweek 28 injury bulletin: doubts for Arsenal and Chelsea, several clubs missing key players today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190,175,1056,1083,194,969,689,1464],"tags":[1073,1359,826],"class_list":["post-7132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-man-city","category-man-utd","category-newcastle-united","category-premier-league","category-sunderland","category-tottenham","tag-acl-injury","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-bukayo-saka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132","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=7132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}