Injury updates on nine Gunners ahead of Forest | Quotes | News

The international break gave us a fortnight to try and get some of our squad fit for tomorrow’s match against Nottingham Forest and Mikel Arteta used his pre-match press conference to give an update on eight players.

There was bad news in that Ben White is set for a stint on the sidelines after undergoing knee surgery, but Mikel was more upbeat about Leandro Trossard, who was forced off in the first half of Belgium’s defeat by Israel on Monday night.

“Trossard seems to be all right,” he said. “He trained this morning and seems to be fine. We’ll assess everything with the doctor right now as he could be part of that session, so that’s good.”

Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were not called up by England due to their respective injury problems and there was also good news when it came to the duo.

“They’ve had their first sub session today, so very good too,” Mikel added. “I prefer it when the players are in the routine, in the rhythm to play. They couldn’t do it because they were injured, so we’ve tried to facilitate everything we could for them to be in the best condition for tomorrow.”

Martin Odegaard also missed Norway’s UEFA Nations League games, which Mikel revealed was due to his all-action display against Chelsea in our last game. He bravely completed the full 90 minutes in his first start since August, but it took its toll on our skipper.

“He played really well (against Chelsea) and it had consequences because after not playing for so long he needed time to recover,” Mikel added. “The ankle reacted and other areas of the body with so much stress on it. It wasn’t ideal but he’s been OK, the last day and a half he’s been training with the team and he’s feeling good so that’s really positive.”