Mikel Arteta has revealed his plans for Thursday night's Europa League tie with Sporting CP, addressing how he intends to balance the midweek action and a title race. It comes after several players have been in and out of the squad in the past fortnight with knocks and strains.
Although the Spaniard did play it coy on revealing who would be available for the game, he did explain the juggling act between domestic and continental football he has to do. "We have one team and we have to play the games with the best possible players to win it," he said in Portugal.
"There have been moments where we have made eight changes. We try to accommodate. Players have moments throughout the season, players are available and not available throughout the season. For sure we will try to put the best team to win the game."
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This would indicate a strong side from the manager despite a tough London derby with high-flying Fulham following on Sunday. "News on the squad will be tomorrow," he added. "We have brought a few players and you will see tomorrow who is available.
"Let’s see how they evolve. Obviously we’ve had a few issues in the last few days and I am trying to accommodate everybody and get everyone in the best possible condition for tomorrow."
Regarding injuries, Leandro Trossard was taken off in the first half against Bournemouth on Saturday and is a doubt for the game. Arteta had nothing new on the Belgian but did explain his situation earlier in the week, saying, "It is a worry, he came to me straight away and said he couldn't continue, he'd felt something when he was tracking back, so we had to take him off. We'll assess him and see how he is."
His replacement was Emile Smith Rowe. The Englishman was later subbed off himself though in order to continue a gradual intergration back into the team following a succession of injuries. “We didn’t plan to throw him in so early," explained Arteta on Saturday.
"We knew it was difficult for him to last 70 minutes on the field after missing nearly five months. But I think he had a good impact but at the end, I felt we needed something else on the left because we were lacking threat and we were attracting more players into that (left) side. That’s why we made the decision to bring Reiss on."
Asked about how he has recovered from the game, Arteta then said in the pre-Sporting press-conference: "He is fine. He has trained really well. He was extremely happy that his team won. And on to the next one."
Meanwhile Eddie Nketiah and Kieran Tierney were abscent from training before the game at London Colney alongside Trossard, with football.london learning that the left-back was ill. Nketiah is another uncertainty after limping against Everton towards the end and then missing the Bournemouth win entirely.
"It's a bit uncertain what will happen with him to be honest in the training sessions," Arteta said last week. "Let’s see, let’s keep the options open. He’s very positive about it and hopefully he’ll be fine."
Gabriel Jesus, on the other hand, is on the mend and trained positively before the clash. "He's not far now," the boss admitted. "I don't want to give a timeline but he's doing certain things with the team, certain things outside the team. He's not very close but he is not far at all.
"He's feeling better every day and the doctors are confident with the way the injury is evolving and we are in a good place with him I think." There isn't a sense that he will be thrust back into the fold just yet though: "We will try not to rush him back, we will try to make a fair assessment between what he needs and when is comfortable and as well giving the team a boost that it’s going to need in the next few weeks for sure," Arteta added.
"Everything is going well, he needs time as well to get himself that confidence and that physical state that is necessary to compete with a free mind and once he’s free to do that, we will throw him in."
There is also the question of how much to rotate for this game, especially with small injuries stacking up. "Yeah of course everyone wants to play," undertsands Arteta. "It’s true as well when we’ve wanted to rotate players they’ve been injured and unavailable. Tomorrow that may be the case.
"Sometimes it’s been difficult and players have to deserve to play the minutes. Being fair in football is very difficult. You have to be really good at communicating your decisions to help players understand what you do, but all the time you have to think for the best of the team. We want everybody to feel important and we are going to try to make them feel like that."
As for the illness that affected Tierney, there isn't much worry of it spreading. "These things happen throughout the season," Arteta said. "Sometimes happens four days before the match, sometimes the day before the match. We deal with that and tomorrow everybody will be in the best possible condition to compete."
Mohamed Elneny remains out, meanwhile, as he continues his recovery from a knee operation.
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