Mikel Arteta blames schedule as Arsenal injury list grows

Mikel Arteta claimed an overloaded fixture list is at the heart of Arsenal’s fitness problems after two more players hobbled off in a 2-0 win over Brentford on Wednesday night.

Arsenal restored their five-point advantage at the top of the Premier League with goals from Mikel Merino and substitute Bukayo Saka at Emirates Stadium. The victory, however, was overshadowed by fresh concerns over Cristhian Mosquera and Declan Rice.

Mosquera was withdrawn before half-time with what Arteta described as a “knee or ankle” issue, while Rice appeared to suffer a calf problem and was replaced with seven minutes remaining.

Arsenal have already spent long spells without several key players this season, including Viktor Gyökeres, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Magalhães and Kai Havertz. They now have limited time to recover before a lunchtime trip to Aston Villa on Saturday.

Speaking about Arsenal’s fitness issues, Arteta said: “Probably it’s not one thing but we can help the players and everybody in the league and everybody to do what we have to do.

“Give us another day and especially the teams that are playing so much in Europe. To everybody in general, I think we can do that because we’re all going to benefit from that.

“We’ve never had such a schedule at every level, not only in the Premier League but every competition internationally as well. So we need to try to do that please.

“I think it’s common sense. At some point this becomes too much and the players are not machines. But we have to try to do that when we can.”

Merino continued his unexpected scoring run by netting his 10th league goal of the campaign, once again leading the line as Arsenal’s central striker.

Arteta admitted that Merino’s impact this season has forced him to stop worrying about how a full-strength squad would fit together, especially after the summer arrival of Gyökeres.

“I think that’s a lesson,” he said. “And I took that lesson because the whole summer I was thinking, if we bring a nine, what was going to happen with Gabi Jesus and Kai? And I had a lot of nines.

“I just think that I like them so much as well. OK, what are we going to do? How are we going to handle it? And so far we haven’t had a problem because they’ve been injured. So live the present, live the moment and deal with the situation when it comes. That’s it.”