ARSENAL WILL ONCE again be without defender William Saliba in tomorrow’s top-of-the-table showdown with Manchester City, while Mikel Arteta has revealed Granit Xhaka remains a doubt.
Arsenal travel to the Etihad tomorrow night to face a City side over whom a five-point cushion is mitigated against by the fact City have two games in hand.
Xhaka missed Friday’s frenetic 3-3 draw with Southampton through illness and has yet to return to training.
While Xhaka may yet make an appearance against City, key defender William Saliba will miss the clash with Erling Haaland and co.
“There’s not been a real improvement unfortunately on him, so we are still waiting”, said Arteta at his pre-game press conference. “It’ll be another week that has gone by and he hasn’t been able to train with the team.”
Saliba sustained a back injury in the Europa League defeat to Sporting Lisbon on 16 March, and his presence has been sorely missed. Arsenal have conceded nine goals in the five games they have played since Saliba came out of the team, a run which included costly draws with Liverpool, West Ham, and Southampton.
The pressure has been ramped up on Arteta and his young players after those three draws, but the Arsenal manager wants his side to thrive under the spotlight having already recorded some impressive victories on the road.
“It is going to be a tough night and challenge, yes, but the opportunity is incredible for us,” he said.
“We knew from the beginning – you want to win a Premier League, you have to go to Spurs and you have to beat them, you have to go to Chelsea and you have to beat them.
“This is what we have been doing, that is why we are here and now we have to go to City and we have to beat them – you want to be champion, you have to win these matches, it is as simple as that.”
It remains to be seen if Arteta, who won two league titles as assistant under Guardiola at City before returning to take the top job at Arsenal, shuffles his pack in an attempt to outfox his former mentor.
But he insists his team is constantly shifting the way they approach matches and that will not change despite the challenge at hand.
“That’s what we do every game in certain areas,” he said. “Are you talking in ball possession, out of possession, in transition, at restarts, on set pieces, emotional state?
“You have to shift it all the time. Every opponent demands and questions different things of you and gives you different opportunities.
“There’s no difference with that team (City), it’s just obviously the quality of the opponent is as good as it gets anywhere in the world.”
Arteta also refuted suggestions the game was winner-takes-all in the title race, adding: “If we win tomorrow night we haven’t won, for sure.
“It would shift the percentage a little bit but five games in this league with the games we still have to play, it’s very tricky.
“We knew from the beginning that City was the team to beat with Liverpool because of what those teams have done in the past few years. They fully deserve that credit and to be at the top.
“We wanted to close that gap as much as we could and we’re toe-to-toe with them. We knew we had to go to the Etihad, we know that after that we’re going to have five more difficult games.
“We know it is going to be a massive game. Is it going to define the season? The answer is no.”
With reporting by Gavin Cooney
