Arteta provides concerning injury update; admits Arsenal ‘tried’ to ‘react’ on deadline day

Mikel Arteta has provided an update on the availability of Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny ahead of Arsenal’s game against Man Utd on Sunday afternoon.

Both midfielders have picked up injuries in recent weeks. This has left Arteta with just Granit Xhaka and Albert Sambi Lokonga to choose from in midfield.

With Xhaka and Lokonga, Arsenal maintained their perfect start to the season in midweek with a 2-1 win over Aston Villa.

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Arsenal look to pick up maximum points once again this weekend as they travel to face Man Utd at Old Trafford.

Ahead of this game, Arteta has revealed that Elneny will be out for “months”, while Partey is set to be unavailable for “weeks”:

“[Aaron] Ramsdale and [Martin] Odegaard have been assessed and we will see more tomorrow,” Arteta told reporters.

“Hopefully they’ll be available to train with the team. Alex [Zinchenko] missed two games and has not been able to train with team yet. For Mo [Elneny], we are talking months. With Thomas [Partey], we are hopefully talking weeks and even shorter than that. We have tried to manage him. A lot has happened since he’s joined.

“We are trying the possible way to find reasons for that. Unfortunately his body and mind are too difficult to und to put finger on to identify one factor. Attitude is there. He’s really disappointed and wants to get back.”

The Gunners did attempt to sign a new midfielder on deadline day as they had three bids rejected for Aston Villa’s Douglas Luiz.

The Villans were unwilling to let him leave though and the final offer they turned down was worth around £25m.

Arteta has also admitted that the club “tried” to add to their squad before Thursday night’s deadline:

“We had a lot of things still to do with squad. Look at the departures compared to what we’ve recruited.

“The club has done a phenomenal job to bring players with the profiles we wanted. Unfortunately Tomo [Tomiyasu] got injured in the same place last time and Eleny has a long term injury. We had to react.

“We tried but have to bring in the right player for team and for club but didn’t manage to do that.

“It’s the team we have. For me it’s best squad and team I have available. There is nothing else we can do. We have an academy as well that we have to use and we will try to do that the best possible way.”