A fresh trio of personnel concerns have been unveiled at Arsenal, on the back of the club’s meeting with Liverpool on Thursday.
Gunners stand tall
Mikel Arteta of course guided his troops back into action 24 hours ago.
On the back of an embarrassing FA Cup exit at the hands of Nottingham Forest, the Gunners turned their attentions towards matters in the Carabao Cup, eyeing an improved performance, and result, against Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
And though they didn’t quite manage to completely upset the odds courtesy of a victory at Anfield, Arsenal did battle their way to a hugely impressive stalemate.
Despite Granit Xhaka having been dismissed inside half an hour, the north Londoners stood firm en route to a 0-0 result, keeping their hopes of a spot in the competition’s finale firmly alive ahead of next week’s return leg at the Emirates.
RED CARD! ?
Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka is sent off after a reckless last man challenge on Liverpool’s Diogo Jota pic.twitter.com/n71xpYPzRW
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) January 13, 2022
Tierney joins list of concerns
As alluded to above, though, the endeavours of Arteta and co. on Merseyside ultimately came at a cost.
This comes with the under-manned Gunners, already without the services of the likes of Thomas Partey, Emile Smith Rowe, Martin Odegaard and Takehiro Tomiyasu, having been dealt a fresh trio of blows on the personnel front.
As per journalist Sam Dean, all of Calum Chambers, Bukayo Saka and Kieran Tierney picked up some form of knock on Thursday night, adding to Cedric Soares’ early departure from proceedings.
On top of the pre-existing issues, there were more injury problems for Arsenal during/after last night’s game. Understand Chambers, Saka and Tierney all picked up knocks, along with the injury that forced Cedric off.
— Sam Dean (@SamJDean) January 14, 2022
In turn, news of Arsenal lodging an official request with the Premier League to have their scheduled North London Derby meeting with Tottenham on Sunday postponed has not come as all that much of a surprise.
As per The Athletic:
Premier League rules stipulate that teams must fulfil fixtures if they have 14 players — 13 outfields and a goalkeeper — available to play.
Arsenal, however, are now understood to have just 12 outfield players fit and available for selection.
NEWS | #Arsenal have requested for their north London derby against #THFC on Sunday to be postponed by the Premier League.
More from @gunnerblog and @JackPittBrooke https://t.co/TbBxkfGaMt
— The Athletic UK (@TheAthleticUK) January 14, 2022
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