Arteta Issues Injury Update On Hincapie, Zubimendi, Saliba Ahead Of UCL Clash With Lille

Mikel Arteta has issued a fitness update on Arsenal trio Piero Hincapie, Martin Zubimendi and William Saliba ahead of their UEFA Champions League clash with French side Lille.

Speaking at the Sobha Realty Training Centre ahead of Tuesday’s game, Arteta confirmed that the Gunners will be without Hincapie, who along with Zubimendi, picked up an injury after our 2-1 win over Leeds United on Saturday.

“Well it happened,” Arteta said, “we had a training session planned after the game for the players that didn’t have enough minutes to get everybody the recovery day on Sunday, and to get everybody in the right rhythm.

“In two very unfortunate actions, we lost two players, and yeah, not great. We need to assess them today. They have further scans to see where they are and they will have that time frame, how long they’re going to be out for.”

Both Hincapie and Zubimendi took part in a post-match session on the pitch at Emirates Stadium after our fifth Premier League win of the season.

With Arteta describing the timing of their injuries as “less than ideal,” he was asked how such injuries can be avoided going forward.

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“Very easy; don’t train. Never train, and they don’t get injured. That’s why the consequence to that is when they have to play, they have no rhythm, and when you ask them to play, they’re going to have no impact in the game.

“It never happened in seven years that I’ve been here. But what can you do? If I knew I had a crystal ball, I’d say, guys, go in the jacuzzi, everybody, and see you tomorrow. The temptation is that we don’t take that risk, and we’ll do something else, but we were going to do that anyway the next day.

“When you play these kind of small-sided games, there is contact, and these things happen. They didn’t happen once last season, and we did it 37 times I think it is.

“If we had to do this again, the way we planned the seven days that we had in that period with the players that didn’t have enough load, would it have been the case? The answer is yes, and it’s a sport of contact, and this can happen.”

He added: “They’re both going to miss tomorrow’s match, that’s for sure, and today they’re going to have a further scan and probably tomorrow we’ll know more.
“Then we’ll see how they’re going to go. Piero’s one looks a little bit more serious I think, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

On Saliba, he revealed: “It’s over a week I think [he’s been on the grass], obviously we’re managing that load.” Mikel said on the Frenchman.

“He’s building now his capacity to good standards, and let’s see in the next few weeks if we can start to introduce him to the team to see where we are to actually make him available for the squad.

“We’re still talking about weeks, and when that happens, it’s very different whether he would play just before or just after [the November international break] because it’s a very specific injury, that the healing process I cannot tell you exactly how he’s going to react to.”