Arsenal face Sporting in the quarter-final first leg on Tuesday night (kick-off 8pm), with the return leg scheduled for just over a week later at the Emirates Stadium. In the run-up to the game, there were injury concerns for Gabriel, Reis, Saka, Piero Hincapie, Julian Timber and Leandro Trossard. Eberechi Eze and Mikel Merino remain sidelined with injuries.
Asked in his pre-match press conference if Gabriel, Reis and Trossard would be available, Arteta replied: “Yes, yes, yes.”
Providing an update on Timber and Saka, the Arsenal manager added: “They haven’t arrived yet, but we’ll see. If everything goes well, we hope they’ll be ready for the weekend.” This is a big boost because we have lost so many important players in the last few days and this needs to change immediately.”
Timber has been battling injury for the past three weeks and is expected to be in contention to return against Southampton. However, he has not been included in the squad for the FA Cup match, and attention has been focused on the possibility of his return at the weekend ahead of the second leg.
Saka was absent from the squad against Southampton after returning early from international duty with England and found himself in an equal position. He will now miss the first leg against Sporting. One player who is expected to play an active role in the attack is Victor Gokeres, who will play against his former club.
The striker joined Arsenal from Sporting in the summer for a fee of around £55 million. Arteta revealed he had spoken to Gokeres to gain understanding of Arsenal’s opponents.
“Of course, we did it to understand the cultural dynamics and get more information that we could use to our advantage,” he said.
“They have a lot of qualities and what they are doing is remarkable. The record they have at home is amazing.”
Speaking about how the signing of Gokeres came about, Arteta said: “He’s been on our radar for a number of years, but more recently it was around December last year that he was one of our top targets.”
“When there was a problem with Kai (Havertz), he became one of the main candidates.”
