As part of his pre-match press conference ahead of our crunch game against Manchester City, Mikel Arteta has provided an injury update on Gabriel, Bukayo Saka Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
Our Brazilian centre-back was forced to miss his country's friendlies against England and Spain during the international window after pulling out of the Selecao squad, while Bukayo was also unavailable for Gareth Southgate after reporting for Three Lions duty with an injury.
Martinelli meanwhile sat out our last two matches against Brentford and Porto after sustaining a cut on his foot at Sheffield United at the start of the month, also ruling him out of national service.
And when pressed on whether the trio would be fit for the trip to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, Mikel admitted he is leaving it until the last possible moment to make that call.
On whether any of them will feature, he said: "There is a chance. They haven’t trained but tomorrow we have another session so there is a chance that they can be available."
There was better news for Mikel during the break as Takehiro Tomiyasu and Thomas Partey built up their fitness in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Queens Park Rangers, meaning that Jurrien Timber is our only other concern as he continues his rehabilitation from the ACL injury he sustained in our opening league fixture of the campaign against Nottingham Forest.
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