WHEN it rains, it pours for Mikel Arteta after he revealed another player faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Although his Arsenal side are top of both the Premier League and Champions League tables, injuries are starting to mount up.
It was reported yesterday that Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard and William Saliba all missed training and are missing tonight’s game against Club Brugge in Belgium.
Kai Havertz and Gabriel Magalhaes are also out, and are not expected to return until the New Year.
The same now goes for Cristhian Mosquera after Arteta confirmed it is weeks rather than days he will be out.
The Gunners boss said: “Unfortunately he’s going to be out for weeks. It’s much more than what we expected, but the player was feeling it, so he’s going to be out for weeks.”
Mosquera was substituted just before half-time in Arsenal’s 2-0 win against Brentford last week.
Signed from Valencia in the summer for £13 million as cover for first choice centre-back pairing Saliba and Gabriel, the Spaniard has played more than he might have expected due to the injury crisis.
He is now very much a part of that, meaning Jurrien Timber and Piero Hincapie will continue to deputise there tonight.
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A makeshift defence may have contributed to the Gunners picking up just four points from their last nine available in the Premier League, which has seen the gap cut to just two points.
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Attention turns to the Champions League tonight, where they are aiming to make it six wins out of six in the group phase so far.
But they will have to do it without SIX first-team players, a feeling Arteta knows all too well.
Arsenal have now suffered 93 separate cases of injury since the start of 2024/25, including 26 so far this season – second only to Leeds in the Premier League, who have had 28.
Arteta explained the reasons for this.
He said: “We don’t have time to train. So training is not there but obviously the fact that you are missing players, you are loading other players more (as) a consequence. It’s a really dangerous circle that one.
“Some of the players have played over 150 games in two seasons so it starts to get overloaded. You start to ask them again and again and again to do that (and) at some point they will break down.
“It’s something that we are constantly looking at. We have played a lot of games with a lot of players missing that puts a lot of stress and then more injuries but we are on it.
“I’m really happy what we’re doing in terms of the medical stuff and everything that we are trying to bring together, but sometimes as well we need some things to go on our side.”
