Turns out Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was playing his cards close to his chest with regard to Granit Xhaka's availability against Manchester City.
Whilst confirming William Saliba's absence, the Spaniard refused to reveal if the Gunners' vice-captain was in line for a swift return after missing the 3-3 draw at home to Southampton last Friday night - the first Premier League game he has sat out this season - because of illness.
"Granit has been out," Arteta said in the pre-match press conference. "Hopefully, he'll be able to train today but he's still a doubt." Interestingly in the training images released by Arsenal later in the day, there was no sign of Xhaka which immediately cast even further doubt on his involvement at the Etihad Stadium.
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However, footage of the Arsenal squad arriving in Manchester has been uploaded to Twitter by @TheJesusZone and Xhaka was spotted stepping off the team bus and this would imply that the Switzerland international looks set to be named in the matchday squad.
In addition, the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Benjamin White, Rob Holding, Aaron Ramsdale, Kieran Tierney, Leandro Trossard, Jorginho and captain Martin Odegaard can be seen in the video clip with the north London outfit nearly at full strength.
So even though it appeared that Xhaka's status for the Man City game was up in the air following Arteta's comments, the fact he has made the trip indicates that he should be fine to take his place on the substitutes bench, even if he's not deemed fit enough to start the huge Premier League title showdown.
This particular scenario means that highly-rated youngster Reuell Walters - who has provided defensive cover in the absence of Saliba of late - drops out of the matchday squad altogether having been an unused substitute against Crystal Palace, Leeds United, Liverpool, West Ham United and Southampton.
In fact, as per Premier League rules regarding a 20-man matchday squad because the teenager was involved in the Arsenal U18's FA Youth Cup final defeat against the Hammers last night, it's looking likely that it will be a straight swap between him and Xhaka with perhaps Fabio Vieira losing his place in the starting line-up.
With Mohamed Elneny and Takehiro Tomiyasu already ruled out and Karl Hein set to lose out once again to Matt Turner as the backup goalkeeping option, Arsenal's fourth senior absentee against Man City is Saliba and it's been revealed that the Frenchman is likely to miss next week's London derby vs Chelsea too.
"There’s not been a real improvement unfortunately on him, so we’re still waiting," Arteta added. "We’re still hopeful, but another week has gone by and he hasn’t been able to train with the team. At the moment we don’t have him. We are preparing the game without him and probably the next game will come too soon as well. We have to go week by week at the moment."
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