Mikel Arteta gives Bukayo Saka injury update ahead of Arsenal vs Man City

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Mikel Arteta justified his selection of Bukayo Saka despite the Arsenal winger hobbling off during their loss to Lens in the Champions League.

The Arsenal team scored first with Gabriel Jesus, but Adrien Thomasson equalized after David Raya messed up. Unfortunately, Saka had to leave the match due to an injury.

Lens managed to secure a 2-1 victory, with Elye Wahi scoring in the second half. However, Arteta may have been more worried about Saka's injury.

The current champions of the Premier League, Manchester City, are scheduled to play at the Emirates Stadium in five days. However, it is uncertain whether England's forward Saka will be able to participate in the match, as he has been forced to leave the field during the past three games.

When asked if he felt sorry about choosing Saka despite his problems with Tottenham and Bournemouth, Arteta responded by saying that he didn't regret it at all. Recently, Saka had suffered a minor injury due to a back-heel maneuver which is a usual cause for such an injury to happen. However, Saka had recovered perfectly from it and was fit to play.

"Let's assess the full scope of the situation before it becomes irreversible. The previous ones were merely minor setbacks."

He hasn't actually skipped any matches. Last week, we allowed him to rest during the Brentford game in the Carabao Cup. And that was the sole occurrence.

During the first half, he attempted to kick the ball backwards using his heel and suddenly felt a muscular sensation. As a result, he experienced discomfort and was unable to continue playing, which led us to substitute him.

We have no further information at this time. The injury was significant enough to prevent him from continuing to participate in the game, which concerns us.

He was eagerly anticipating playing in the game, much like all other players. The match was highly significant in the Champions League. I described the scenario we would encounter and they were all aware of it. Additionally, I created a visual representation to further emphasize the importance of the game.

"This Champions League is incredibly challenging to win when playing in other team's stadiums. We learned a valuable lesson today."

Arsenal had a rough 24 hours recently. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, Arteta and his team were stranded at Luton airport for five hours on Monday, causing a delay in their trip to France. This unfortunate situation was followed by a loss in their game.

Their desire to smoothly progress to the knockout stages has been hindered due to a chaotic evening at the lively Stade Bollaert-Delelis.

Arteta refused to make excuses when questioned about whether the team's performance was affected by their preparation for the game.

Firstly, let's give a round of applause to Lens. They are an impressive team and are evidently well-guided. We were aware that this was going to be a challenging match.”

We had several opportunities in the boxes, but we missed four or five of them and we also failed to defend the boxes properly.

There were indeed times during the latter part of the game when we had difficulty in creating opportunities and discovering gaps in the attacking third.

"Their defense was executed excellently with the amount of players they had on the field. It's a valuable lesson for us to carry forward into our next game."

The Lens team didn't do very well when the season first began, but they managed to win their last two games in the Ligue 1. They were about to play their first home game in the Champions League in twenty-one years, and defender Kevin Danso was very happy with how things were going.

"We put in maximum effort today in front of our supporters," he stated.

The match was challenging as Arsenal had exceptional skills and forced us to retreat. However, we persisted in our defense and remained focused throughout. Fortunately, we managed to emerge victorious in the end.

When playing in front of our supporters, we are fully aware of our own strength. Our aim is to always secure a victory when at home. Although I am somewhat disappointed about not maintaining a clean sheet, the most important thing is that we have earned three points.