Mikel Arteta has perfect Arsenal blueprint to solve injury crisis for Bournemouth clash

Latest Arsenal injury news with Mikel Arteta potentially having the ideal solution to a number of fitness concerns for Bournemouth

Mikel Arteta may already have the perfect answer to solving Arsenal's ongoing injury crisis for their return to Premier League action away at Bournemouth. The Gunners have been hit by multiple fitness blows during the first few weeks of the 2024/25 season with that trend continuing over the international break.

Martin Odegaard, Jurrien Timber, Ben White and Oleksandr Zinchenko all missed the 3-1 win over Southampton before the two-week pause. Thomas Partey and Kai Havertz also returned to London Colney with minor issues as opposed to representing Ghana and Germany, respectively.

While both Declan Rice and Gabriel Magalhaes enjoyed fruitful breaks, two of their compatriots certainly did not. In England's 2-1 Nations League defeat to Greece, Bukayo Saka limped off early because of an injury with reports then emerging from Brazil that Gabriel Martinelli was sent for an MRI after complaining of calf pain.

Key absences at full-back had already handed Arteta a major dilemma and now he has been handed some huge worries out wide. Given the injury issues in his squad, Arteta was asked for updates on a number of stars with a mixture of positive and negative news delivered.

"It’s not a serious injury [for Saka]. He’s evolving well. He was probably good enough to play with the national team second game. We have some big tests today so we are hopeful." On White, Timber and Zinchenko, he added: "They are quite close the three of them. Today we’ll have to push. We are struggling a bit with the numbers, especially in our right side."

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Arteta was also on hand to offer the latest on Martinelli, Odegaard and Havertz with it sounding far less likely that trio make the game in comparison to the other four. "He [Odegaard] is not gonna be fit for this game," the Arsenal boss said.

"Next week will be a different story. He needs to clear some markers doing things with the ball in that latter stage of rehab. Next week will be crucial. Gabi [Martinelli] landed yesterday afternoon. Yesterday he went outside for a bit to see how he’s feeling. We have to decide if we want to take a risk because I know he’ll say he is [fine].

"He [Havertz] had a few issues but we’ve been dealing with that. We have great communication with Germany. If he trains well today he has a good chance to be fit and available." Despite understandable concerns, hope remains that many of those dealing with issues can make the clash at Vitality Stadium.

In fact, Arteta was in a very similar situation for this exact fixture last season with Rice, Saka and Leandro Trossard among those named as major injury doubts. In the end, all three started the game with the Gunners going on to win 4-0 and Arteta will certainly be hopeful of exactly that happening again.

However, regardless of their availability, it is possible many key players are rested because of the upcoming fixtures. Next Tuesday evening, Arsenal welcome Shakhtar Donetsk to Emirates Stadium for a Champions League clash before then facing title rivals Liverpool at the same venue five days later.

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