Arsenal face Brighton in the Premier League this week with Declan Rice and several other players as injury doubts for Mikel Arteta
17:20, 03 Mar 2026
Declan Rice was one of four Arsenal stars that appeared to miss training before Brighton
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Declan Rice was one of four Arsenal stars that appeared to miss training before Brighton(Image: (Photo by Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images))
Mikel Arteta will have had limited time on the training pitch to prepare his Arsenal players for Wednesday's Premier League clash away to Brighton. The Gunners beat Chelsea just over 48 hours ago, but are back in action this midweek with the aim of extending their lead over Manchester City at the top.
With Monday and Wednesday used for recovery and travel, respectively, Arteta has had just one full session at London Colney and many of his key players were seemingly not present.
Declan Rice was forced off in the weekend's 2-1 victory and was perhaps therefore unsurprisingly absent from the pictures of training uploaded to the club's website on Tuesday afternoon.
When asked if the midfielder was OK a few hours earlier during his pre-match press conference, Arteta said: "I hope so. He was much better today.
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"Obviously, we haven't really trained because we have only two days to prepare for the game, so hopefully he's going to be better tomorrow."
A light session has been completed ahead of the Brighton match however, with Kai Havertz's involvement revealed by Arteta. He said: "He's done a part of the session so we will have to wait and see whether he's available and in which condition."
Arteta's comments were confirmed by the Germany international being in those training pictures. He was captured striking the ball while being pressed by an academy youngster.
Ben White was one Arsenal player who was not spotted out training on Tuesday with that not coming as a shock as Arteta had revealed earlier in the day that he is still unavailable.
Martin Odegaard's availability however, is currently unknown with the Gunners boss simply stating, "we will see," when asked about his captain.
Martin Odegaard of Arsenal reacts
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Martin Odegaard is an Arsenal injury doubt to face Brighton(Image: Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
The 27-year-old joined Rice and White in not being captured in the training pictures, while a major foot injury has kept Mikel Merino out of featuring in any Arsenal training sessions since the end of January. While not the case for the Spaniard, Odegaard and Rice could have featured in parts of training but just not been photographed.
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Max Dowman was also absent for a significant chunk of 2026, but he is now back and available for the first-team after playing 45 minutes for the under-21s last Friday. Having Rice and Odegaard back available would serve as a huge boost to Arteta in the Premier League title race against Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola's side are also in action at 7:30pm on Wednesday evening as they face Nottingham Forest at Etihad Stadium. The two teams then have FA Cup fifth round fixtures to focus on this weekend.
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