Arteta drops a worrying injury update on Arsenal duo

After Arsenal’s friendly against Chelsea, Mikel Arteta provided injury updates on key duo Thomas Partey and Gabriel Magalhaes.

Mikel Arteta has conceded Thomas Partey’s ankle injury is ‘not looking good’ and that Gabriel is indeed a doubt for Arsenal’s season opener.

The pair’s respective injuries come just under two weeks before Arsenal visit the newly promoted Brentford in west London for their first game of the new Premier League season.

Partey came off injured in the first half of Sunday’s 2-1 friendly defeat to Chelsea following a challenge from Ruben Loftus-Cheek. He will undergo a scan on Monday to determine the damage.

Found the specific mechanism of injury for Partey (see picture).

This is typically indicative of a “high ankle sprain” aka syndesmotic tear. These typically come with a 4-6 week return timeline if a grade 1 injury. Recent example is Harry Maguire. pic.twitter.com/syae1CWCjk

— Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT (@3cbPerformance) August 1, 2021

“I just had a talk with the doctor. He’ll have a scan tomorrow,” said Arteta in a post-match conference at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

“At the moment it’s not looking good because he was in pain and he could not continue which for Thomas is pretty unusual.”

The former Atletico Madrid midfielder has suffered a series of unfortunate injury issues ever since his €50 million move to Arsenal last October.

Gabriel, meanwhile, sustained a knee injury during preparations with Brazil for the Olympics Games in Tokyo.

Official: Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhães has been forced to withdraw from the Brazil squad for the Tokyo Olympics, which start later this month, due to a knee injury (tendinitis in the right knee with swelling).

Wishing you a speedy recovery, @biel_m04! 💛 #afc pic.twitter.com/ZhPcqiRYWe

— afcstuff (@afcstuff) July 7, 2021

Asked about the defender’s chances of being available to face Brentford, Arteta replied: “We don’t know.

“He’s still injured. He picked up an injury while he was doing the preparation for the Olympics with Brazil and at the moment he’s not been able to train with us. That seems unlikely at the moment but hopefully he can recover quickly.”

The Gunners boss added that Xhaka will stay in north London despite reported interest from AS Roma.