Arteta Confirms Fresh Injury Setbacks To Rice And Mosquera Following Brentford Win

‎Mikel Arteta worries that Arsenal’s growing injury list could jeopardize their title challenge after Declan Rice and Cristhian Mosquera both limped off in Wednesday’s 2-0 victory over Brentford.

‎Arsenal extended their lead to five points above second-placed Manchester City, with goals from Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka at the Emirates Stadium.

‎The Gunners extended their unbeaten run to 18 matches in all competitions with an eighth successive home victory.

‎Arteta was already short on central options after starting centre-backs Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba were sidelined, and the setback worsened when Spaniard Cristhian Mosquera pulled up and had to come off just before half-time.

‎Alarm bells rang further as Declan Rice appeared to be dealing with a calf issue when he was substituted 10 minutes from the end.

‎”Obviously it’s never good news. Declan had to come off. We don’t know. We have to see tomorrow what he’s got,” said Arteta, who is also without Kai Havertz and Leandro Trossard due to injuries.

‎”Declan can walk. He cannot play. The thing is, he’s played a lot of minutes, but also, now we played Wednesday night, and we have to play Saturday morning as well.”

‎Arsenal had just navigated a demanding week with victories over Tottenham and Bayern Munich and a draw against Chelsea, so Mikel Arteta opted to rest Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber, and Eberechi Eze against Brentford.

‎However, the match still forced him to bring all three off the bench. Their involvement added to his frustration over the team’s ongoing injury problems.

‎Arteta also criticised the Premier League schedule ahead of a tough early-kickoff trip to an in-form Aston Villa on Saturday.

‎”Rest, that’s quite a positive word to use. We had to make some changes,” he said.

‎”We had a very demanding week at every level. We were asked to play three days later, with one less recovery day than they did.

‎”We can play minutes but if they can please give us just a little more time to recover and to make the welfare of these players a little bit easier, that would be great.”