Mikel Arteta addressed the absence of Gabriel Magalhaes and its impact on Arsenal.
The defender went down with a thigh injury in a 2-0 victory for **Brazil**over **Senegal**in the international break at the Emirates Stadium. Bad fortune continues to plug the Gunners in this department, and they are now without their biggest aerial threat and defensive leader for weeks.
He will miss the match against **Tottenham**on Sunday, the showdown with Bayern Munich in the Champions League, and the trip to **Chelsea**next Sunday: a week from hell. His absence is also ill-timed for a side fighting on four fronts as the winter schedule approaches with compressed recovery time for the players. This is certainly a situation that the team would have wanted to avoid at all costs.
However, there is no time for the troops to feel sorry for themselves. The big Brazilian will still have a role to play behind the scenes, and there is an opportunity for the likes of Piero Hincapie and **Christian Mosquera**to show why the club have invested so much money in increasing their depth.
“Every player brings specific qualities and Gabi’s is his leadership, his presence and that love that he has to defend, and to transmit as well, his body language to other players. We have to do it and we have to spread that. People will step up, we’ve done it in the past, many, many times unfortunately.
“He's a big player for us. But we have experienced last year in the most crucial moment of the season, we were without him for three months and the team managed to remain super competitive. We won a lot of matches. We were defensively really good against tough opponents. We need to do it again.
“The fact that you cannot play or train with that doesn't mean that you cannot do all the other activities and add value to the team and he's going to be very close to the team.”