National World Top Stories Update Thursday 4 December, 2025
Declan Rice is one of many Arsenal players who could miss out on this weekend’s Premier League action.
The Gunners are top of the Premier League and clear of second-placed Manchester City by five points.
This weekend, Mikel Arteta’s squad travel to Aston Villa, who have surged up the league table in recent weeks and currently sit third, ahead of Chelsea and Crystal Palace.
Declan Rice came off injured against Brentford earlier this week.placeholder image
Declan Rice came off injured against Brentford earlier this week. | Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Arsenal have only lost one league game all season, and will be hoping to keep that momentum when they visit Villa Park on Saturday, December 6. But the squad does have a handful of injuries to contend with.
The likes of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Magalhaes are still ruled out, and likely won’t feature for Arsenal again until the new year.
Arteta said: “He [Havertz] is doing really well, he's doing stuff on the pitch, but I think he needs some time. He was doing everything; he could not go to the next level. We are all desperate to have him.
“Big Gabi is doing very well, but that's weeks as well.”
But the new problem is Declan Rice’s injury, after the England international pulled up during Arsenal’s mid-week game against Brentford. With such a short turnaround between games in December, Arteta has admitted he will have to “make some changes” for this weekend’s game.
He added: “Obviously it’s never good news. Declan had to come off. We don’t know. We have to see tomorrow what he’s got.
“He can walk. He cannot play. The thing is, he’s played a lot of minutes but as well, now we played Wednesday night and we have to play Saturday morning as well.
“We can play minutes but if they can please give us just a little more time to recover and to make the welfare of these players a little bit easier, that would be great.”
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