Mikel Arteta had plenty to say on the state of his squad heading into the biggest week of the season so far. Arsenal know that this time next week they could be ten points ahead of Manchester City having played two games more than their nearest rivals.
That would be quite the gap to overturn for Pep Guardiola, even if the real points difference may just be four. On the other hand, should Arsenal fail to beat Southampton and then lose to City away at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday they could find the current champions just one point away with two games still to play.
Ahead of the game Arteta wasn't able to give much good news to anxious fans either. The Spaniard was without key defensive duo Oleksandr Zinchenko and William Saliba for the 2-2 draw with West Ham and are yet to keep a clean sheet without the latter since his injury last month.
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"No big news," he said ahead of hosting Southampton on Friday. "The picture hasn’t changed from last week. Regarding William [Saliba], we still have to wait a little bit more. He is not progressing as quick as we hoped. It’s a bit delicate and we want to be very certain when we push him that he is ready to absorb the load and the risk that we will take and at the moment that’s not possible to do."
There had been hope that Saliba would be able to push for a return against City but that now looks increasingly unlikely. Arteta had previously said he was hopeful of seeing the 22-year-old play again before the end of the season but that has since changed. "I don’t know, it’s a bit early to do [predictions]," he explained.
"Probably next week we are going to have more certainty. There is some evolution, he is doing more activity, but he is not there yet to start to throw him on the pitch at the level that the sessions demand to compete in this league."
As for his Ukrainian teammate? "We will see with that one as well, it's not certain," Arteta added. Zinchenko missed the draw with West Ham due to a precaution after a groin strain. "It’s a muscular injury and it needs some time to heal, and we are not there yet," Arteta continued.
As for the squad as a whole, Arteta discounted exhaustion within the camp after Pep Guardiola admitted his side were shattered following a 1-1 draw away to Bayern Munich. "My players today are really looking forward for tomorrow to get the game that we want and the result that we want, to play in front of our crowd again," he said.
"There’s seven games left, we have four at the Emirates which is for them a big thing. We’re looking forward to it."
Arteta also revealed that there are still slight concerns around overusing Gabriel Jesus after his rapid return to form following a lengthy lay-off post-Qatar 2022. "We will see," he said. "We’ve been really careful and there have been some issues within that period when he was in the final stages of rehab and we have to be really attentive.
"We have players as well that can change the game that are fully fit and probably deserve to play and we have to be mindful of that."
Takehiro Tomiyasu and Mohamed Elneny remain the only other long-term abscentees while City themselves are now likely to be without Nathan Ake for the coming weeks after he was taken off in their second leg in Germany.
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