Mikel Arteta has offered hope that Arsenal will receive a double defensive fitness boost ahead of Saturday’s game against Everton.
The Gunners have suffered more than most with injuries this season and were starting at a defensive crisis with the first leg of their Champions League quarter final against Real Madrid on the horizon.
Confirmation that Gabriel Magalhaes will miss the rest of the season arrived on Thursday, just 48 hours after he limped off during the early stages of the midweek win over Fulham.
Jurrien Timber also hobbled off in the second half, while Ben white missed the game altogether having suffered a setback in training.
Arteta’s side must safely navigate their lunchtime kick-off against Everton before they can begin to fully focus on the challenge of facing Real but their manager is optimistic he will have the tools available to compensate for the loss of Gabriel.
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Asked if White and Timber would feature at Goodison Park, Arteta said: ‘There’s a chance, yes.’
Pressed as to whether it would be a risk to play them with such a big game coming up on Tuesday, he added: ‘The problem is that we have a few of those [calls], so we’re going to have to decide this evening or tomorrow very early in the morning which players we can play and for how long especially.’
Regardless of whether Timber and White will be able to play tomorrow or in midweek, the loss of Gabriel represents a sizable blow to Arsenal’s hopes of ending a difficult season on a high.
The Brazil international has been imperious over the course of the last eight months but, like Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka before him, will now have to undergo surgery.
‘It was a tough one to digest because we just got Bukayo back and then we lost Gabi,’ confessed Arteta.
‘So it was tough, but the team reacted like it has reacted all season. I’m really proud of that and we know that he’s going to be out for a while, so we need to find different solutions and keep competing the way we have been all season.’
Arsenal are far from the only club to have been impacted by the loss of so many important players to injury this season but Arteta admits he has found it difficult to pinpoint the reason his club have been affected so dramatically.
He said: ‘No, I don’t think it’s specific to Arsenal, and it’s a very difficult one to put a finger on just one motive that has caused that injury because we have had four and the four of them are completely different.
‘One is after two days off and in the session he was stopping a shot. The other one is after three consecutive matches in December, the other one is after playing for Brazil and having a few days off, bringing down two good sessions and then playing the first game.
‘So, we don’t really know. We are doing all the research and trying to understand how we can bring that probability down as much as possible but it’s still a bit early.’