Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka Liverpool hope + Timber, Odegaard and Calafiori latest
Arsenal’s ever growing injury list continues to dominate the agenda as Sunday’s game against Liverpool approaches.
The knee issue suffered by Riccardo Calafiori during Tuesday night’s win against Shakhtar was the latest concern to hit Mikel Arteta, with the Italian defender limping off after twisting his leg badly in the 1-0 success.
Calafiori has now undergone a scan and the results are being assessed by Arsenal’s medical staff. I’ve yet to hear any information on those results, but there are early suggestions from the Italian media that the injury is not as serious as first feared and the summer signing will be sidelined for weeks rather than months.
If that is the case then it will be a big boost for Arsenal because it was impossible not to fear the worst when you first saw the replays and saw the strain that was put on Calafiori’s knee when he slipped and his leg twisted under him.
In terms of Bukayo Saka, I’m told that there is a hope that he could be available for Sunday. Arteta sounded quite downbeat when speaking about Saka’s chances after Tuesday’s game, but Arsenal will give him as much time as possible to prove his fitness and there is a chance he could feature.
It’s the same situation when it comes to Jurrien Timber. He is a doubt, but Arsenal do still maintain a hope that he could make his return this weekend. A late decision will be taken on him.
Obviously, Sunday will come too early for Martin Odegaard, but Norway boss Stale Solbakken has hinted that he will be back soon and even suggested that he plans to call up Odegaard for next month’s international break.
“Everything indicates that things are going according to plan,” Solbakken said. “So it’s about the last steps when you have to train with opponents and in team training. It depends on how he responds to that, but we have a legitimate hope that he is ready.”
The thought of Odegaard heading off for international duty will probably not go down too well with fans, especially as he picked up his ankle injury while playing for Norway, but it might not actually be a bad thing.
If he gets a couple of substitute appearances under his belt for Arsenal before the break, then some more game time with his national team might give him some much needed match fitness having been sidelined for so long.
Mikel Arteta will be holding his pre-match press conference ahead of the Liverpool game at 1.30pm on Friday, so we might get a little bit more from the Arsenal boss on the injury situation then.