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Football London
Football London
Sport
Chris Wheatley & Aaron Catterson-Reid

Arsenal stance on Liverpool postponement as Mikel Arteta handed major team news boost

Arsenal's Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Liverpool is set to go ahead on Thursday as things stand.

The Gunners saw their application to postpone Sunday's North London Derby against Tottenham accepted due to a number of absences in the first-team squad.

However, football.london understands that Martin Odegaard and Emile Smith Rowe are in contention for the highly-anticipated clash at the Emirates Stadium.

Smith Rowe hasn't featured for Mikel Arteta's side since the 2-1 loss to Manchester City on New Year's Day whilst Odegaard has been out for the past week after testing positive for Covid-19 following the 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup.

The Norwegian playmaker may be forced to play in a slightly deeper role against the Reds considering Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny are both currently at the Africa Cup of Nations whilst Granit Xhaka is suspended after receiving a straight red card for a challenge on Diogo Jota during the first leg at Anfield.

Despite playing over an hour with just ten men, Arsenal were able to shore up their backline and keep a clean sheet, securing a 0-0 draw - the first time Liverpool have failed to score at home this season.

Summer signing Benjamin White delivered a man of the match display against Jota, Roberto Firmino and co, who registered just one shot on target over the 90 minutes.

After the full-time whistle, White praised his fellow defenders for digging deep against Jurgen Klopp's side, who beat the north Londoners 4-0 in the Premier League earlier this season.

When asked by Sky Sports how they reacted to the red card, he said: "It’s not ideal is it. There is so much fight in this team and it showed today. We dug deep and got the result that we needed.

"I don’t know [if it's a red card], he’s [Xhaka] looking at the ball and he doesn’t know where the man is but it is what it is and the boys did well today."

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