Mikel Arteta confirms Arsenal defensive duo are unavailable to face Bournemouth

After missing the Gunners’ victory over Aston Villa, Declan Rice has a race against time to return for Arsenal’s game against Bournemouth, but manager Mikel Arteta hasn’t ruled him out. Rice might yet make a comeback, but the manager was less hopeful about certain other players.

“No, obviously we haven’t trained yet, so today’s going to be the first training session,” Arteta announced on Friday. We’ll learn more this afternoon, most likely with the guys who clearly began against Villa.

Arteta responded, “Well, not yet, and we have another session today,” when questioned about Rice. It was too early for him to play that game, but we’ll see how he does today. However, Arteta has confirmed that neither Cristhian Mosquera nor Riccardo Calafiori will be available.

After missing the victory against Aston Villa a few days prior, Arteta had been evasive regarding the possibility of Rice playing against Bournemouth this weekend. Late in the day, the midfield player was declared out, raising questions about his absence.

Arteta issues injury update as Arsenal stars are out of Bournemouth clash

While Kai Havertz, Gabriel Magalhaes, and Gabriel Jesus have just recovered from severe injuries, Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera, and Max Dowman are also out. Ben White, William Saliba, Martin Odegaard, Noni Madueke, Jurrien Timber, Viktor Gyokeres, and Bukayo Saka are among the other players that have been crocked this season.

Every time one of his players has an issue, Arteta is asked how he feels. “That is the reality of sport,” he declared. However, we have seen fewer days of players missing due to injury during the past three seasons. Indeed, it depends on your perspective.

“You need to keep them apart because we have injuries. There are mild injuries and those that are catastrophic. We are better than some previous years, but we still need to get better. Rice responded, “Let’s see how he comes through training today and how it feels, but Villa was too early for him,” when asked if his knee injury had healed.