Mikel Arteta confirmed Declan Rice is being assessed after the midfielder limped off during the match with Chelsea and warned that squad rotation will be necessary for the midweek trip to Brighton. A lung-busting surge in the 69th minute ended a Chelsea counterattack, but Rice pulled up awkwardly and limped for a few minutes before being replaced by Christian N\u00f8rgaard.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeclan has to be substituted,\u201d Arteta revealed postgame, \u201cso he\u2019s going to have to get checked and see if he\u2019s available for Wednesday, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta added that more changes are likely as he manages minutes across a congested schedule. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to make changes and give opportunities to everybody to be fresh,\u201d Arsenal \u2019s manager promised. He had used the clear week of preparation to name an unchanged XI for the London derby, but several alterations are expected for the trip south.<\/p>\n
N\u00f8rgaard has been an able deputy and his presence allows Mart\u00edn Zubimendi to express his attacking instincts. Martin \u00d8degaard missed Sunday\u2019s match with a recurrence of a knee injury, forcing Arteta to once again turn to Eberechi Eze. Eze has not scored or assisted a single Premier League goal outside of London in almost 11 months.<\/p>\n
Mikel Merino is not available as a midfield alternative but Kai Havertz returned to action at the weekend. Brighton arrive buoyed by consecutive wins, their first such run since November, and Havertz\u2019s unusual style could be useful against that momentum.<\/p>\n
There may also be a change in goal. David Raya was alert in the Chelsea game but appeared uncomfortable after the final scramble. “I don\u2019t know what happened in that [final] action,” Arteta reflected. “He had some niggles this week, so I don’t know if it’s related to that. But overall, very happy.”<\/p>\n
Arteta will pick the Wednesday team with the FA Cup trip to Mansfield Town in mind. Arsenal have rotated heavily in the cup and have already beaten Premier League opposition in the form of Burnley; Nigel Clough\u2019s third-tier side remain a potential upset threat. No English club has ever won the quadruple but J\u00fcrgen Klopp\u2019s Liverpool did come awfully close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta: Declan Rice to be assessed after limping off; changes and rotation expected for Brighton Wed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1312,1359,1376],"class_list":["post-7257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257","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=7257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}