Mikel Arteta named an unchanged starting XI for Arsenal\u2019s Premier League meeting with Chelsea, but Martin \u00d8degaard was not included in the matchday squad because of a knee problem.<\/p>\n
\u00d8degaard has been through a prolonged run of fitness setbacks this season. He battled past a chronic shoulder problem in the season\u2019s opening weeks and then suffered a severe knee injury over autumn. He was sidelined with a knock last month before returning for last weekend\u2019s north London derby. The impish skipper came off the bench to tee up Arsenal\u2019s final goal of a 4\u20131 win, to make it the club\u2019s largest ever Premier League triumph at Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s home ground.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s squad had been given a week free of fixtures to prepare for Sunday\u2019s match, yet \u00d8degaard was left out. \u201cUnfortunately, Martin is not feeling totally comfortable with a knee injury,\u201d Arteta told Sky Sports ahead of kickoff. \u201cWe decided not to risk him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting XI: David Raya; Jurri\u00ebn Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel, Piero Hincapi\u00e9; Declan Rice, Mart\u00edn Zubimendi; Bukayo Saka, Eberech Eze, Leandro Trossard; Viktor Gy\u00f6keres.<\/p>\n
Substitutes: Kepa Arrizabalaga (GK), Cristhian Mosquera, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Christian N\u00f8rgaard, Gabriel Jesus, Riccardo Calafiori, Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke, Kai Havertz.<\/p>\n
\u00d8degaard\u2019s absence illustrated, once more, the revolving door of Arsenal\u2019s treatment room this season. His omission was offset by the return of Kai Havertz, who has also endured a difficult injury record. Havertz suffered a knee problem in the opening game of the season that delayed his next top-flight appearance for four months. He then made five outings as January bled into February, scoring twice and laying on a pair of assists, before injury struck again.<\/p>\n
The selection for the Chelsea match underlined Arteta\u2019s cautious approach to fitness, and the squad balance that results when one senior player is unavailable and another is fit to return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martin \u00d8degaard was left out of Arsenal’s squad with a knee issue; Kai Havertz returned on Sunday. .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190,969],"tags":[1312,1359,1305],"class_list":["post-7165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-bench-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165","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=7165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}