Arteta provides injury updates on 3 Arsenal players

The Gunners boss offered injury updates on three key players after the victory over Southampton.

Mikel Arteta offered brief injury updates on Emile Smith Rowe, Thomas Partey, and Kieran Tierney after Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Southampton.

Smith Rowe and Partey featured at St Mary’s, but both midfielders hobbled off late in the second half. A muscular injury, meanwhile, ruled Tierney out of the Premier League match altogether.

Speaking in a post-match conference, Arteta said on Smith Rowe: “He was injured for the FA Cup game and we knew that probably today he could not play the whole game.

“He had some muscular discomfort and had to come off again.”

The setbacks left the manager to concede Arsenal have suffered various issues, having faced Southampton twice on Saturday and three days later on Tuesday. In fact, they missed five players in the FA Cup loss over the weekend.

“From Saturday just to make it clear in the FA Cup game we had five players that they were not available to play,” Arteta continued.

“I just want to make clear that we made seven changes and five of them was because they were not ready to play the game. He [Tierney] was one of them, and Thomas was another one of them.”

End-to-end on the south coast ⚡️

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— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 26, 2021

Quizzed on whether Partey suffered a cramp, he replied: “We don’t know, we don’t know. He was still in some discomfort, and hopefully it was nothing. But he was struggling.

“You could see today that he could not even hold for 60 minutes. So, we have to manage those players, we have to protect them. But sometimes they are not fit. I cannot explain every single day how everybody is feeling.”

And as for Tierney, the Scottish full-back remains a doubt ahead of Saturday’s showdown with Manchester United in the Premier League.

Arteta added on Tierney: “I don’t know he wasn’t available against Southampton in the FA Cup he was injured. He’s still injured today and let’s see how he progresses for the game against Man United.”