Arteta explains Rice & Balogun absence in Arsenal's win over Barcelona

The Gunners rounded off their pre-season tour in the USA with a thrilling 5-3 victory over FC Barcelona.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta omitted Declan Rice and Florian Balogun from Wednesday’s 5-3 friendly win against Barcelona because of injury concerns.

Rice hasn’t been able to train normally after suffering a knock. With this in mind, Arteta decided to play it safe by not playing his new £105 million summer signing.

“Dec had quite a strong kick in training,” Arteta revealed in his post-match conference at the SoFi Stadium.

“[We] didn’t want to take the risk, he wasn’t comfortable training yesterday and today, and we decided not to play him.”

Oleksandr Zinchenko also missed the Barcelona game due to a muscular injury. Jurrien Timber, a £38.5 million summer signing from Ajax, started in the left-back position instead.

Meanwhile, Florian Balogun was unavailable due to a foot injury. The striker has been training by himself lately amid doubts over his future at Arsenal.

Quizzed on if Balogun has a role in his squad, Arteta replied: “Yes, we will have to see. First of all, he has to be fit and available to play minutes.”

Arsenal return to action next Wednesday for the Emirates Cup final against AS Monaco. The game will take place at the club’s Emirates Stadium in London.