Mikel Arteta confirmed that Bukayo Saka’s injury is not a serious one in his pre-Bournemouth press conference on Friday.
Our forward came off in the 51st minute of England’s 2-1 defeat at home to Greece during the October international break and subsequently missed the Three Lions’ 3-1 win over Finland.
At Sobha Realty Training Centre, our manager explained that we’ll be making a late call on Bukayo’s availability for Saturday’s trip to the south coast.
“It’s not a serious injury,” he said. “He’s evolving really well. He’s done a few things in the last two days. He wasn’t fit enough to play with the national team the second game but we are hopeful. We have a training session this afternoon, he did some bits yesterday, so let’s see if he can make it on time.”
As for Kai Havertz, who was withdrawn from the Germany national team for their games against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Netherlands, Mikel again reported positive news.
“He had a few issues and we’ve been dealing with that,” he said. “He’s been absolutely brilliant, he has very good communication with the national team, with the manager. They understood the situation, we modified everything that we could do here and again if he trains well today he’s got a good chance to be fit and available.”
Gabriel Martinelli, meanwhile, was on the bench for Brazil’s 4-0 win at home to Peru on Wednesday.
“Well with Gabby he landed yesterday afternoon here so we have very short time to be with him,” Mikel explained. “Yesterday he went outside to do a little bit and see how he’s feeling. Again today will be another step to understand whether we want to take the risk if he’s fit because I know what the player is going to say - ‘I’m going to be fit for sure’.”
On Martin Odegaard’s progress, Saturday’s game comes too soon for our club captain, but the situation will be re-assessed ahead of next week’s games against Shakhtar Donetsk and Liverpool.
“I think he’s not going to be fit for this game,” Mikel said. “Next week will be a different story, but again, in that later stage of rehab where he is at the moment, because he’s doing already a lot of the stuff, he needs to clear some markers, he needs to clear certain things, he needs to be comfortable doing things especially with the ball. I think next week will be crucial to understand how close he is.”
Mikel was also asked for the latest on Ben White, Jurrien Timber and Oleksandr Zinchenko.
“They are quite close, the three of them,” he responded. “Again today we’re going to have to try to push and see how it is because obviously we are getting stronger with the numbers, especially in our right side, but hopefully we have some positive news today and we have some players back for tomorrow.”
As for Takehiro Tomiyasu, Mikel said: "It hopefully doesn’t look like a long period [out], but we have to see when he comes back and how he reacts to the load and to the impact on the pitch as well.
"We really need him, he’s been incredible. The work rate, the amount of hours that he’s put in to get back – he did it - and was in great shape and then picked up something. We’re all behind him, he needs our support and hopefully he’ll be fine."
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