Mikel Arteta has ruled our leading scorer Viktor Gyokeres out of our Champions League match away to Slavia Prague on Tuesday night.
The striker netted his sixth goal of the season in Saturday’s 2-0 win away to Burnley, but had to be taken off at half-time, after a fantastic showing in the opening 45 minutes.
And speaking in his pre-match press conference, the boss said he would be sitting out the midweek game.
“He’s definitely not available,” he confirmed. “He hasn't trained today, and we need to do some more tests and scans in the next few days to understand the extent of the injury, but for this game he's not available.
“I am concerned because he hasn't had many muscular issues and he had to leave the pitch. He was feeling something and that’s obviously never a good sign. Especially for a player that is very, very explosive, so we are digging in a little bit more to understand where we are in terms of the injury and we will announce it when we know more.”
It comes as a big blow to the Swede, who has scored twice already in the Champions League this season, and the manager said it’s cruel timing for our summer signing, who has so far featured in every Premier League and European game for us.
“Well obviously he was very disappointed after the match with what he felt,” Arteta said, “but this is part of football. At the end of the day, if you expect a linear line, everything going up, it's not going to happen.
“If he's got something he's going to have to deal with, we will help him to do that. He was in a really good moment, in really good form, he's very important for the team. But for tomorrow, we don't have him, so that's it.”
The manager will also have to do without the suspended Martin Zubimendi on Tuesday night, as the Spanish midfielder is suspended. Declan Rice also goes into the game one booking away from missing the Bayern Munich encounter on Matchday Five.
Arteta said: “It comes as well with the situation of Zubi. We know that Zubi was on two yellows as well, so that's the competition. At some point you might miss players in crucial games. Obviously we're going to try to avoid that as much as possible but it's part of the competition.”
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