Arsenal hit by injury crisis with FOUR players ruled out of West Ham clash as Arteta gives update
MIKEL ARTETA has opened up on Arsenal’s injury struggles ahead of their clash with West Ham today.
The Gunners are missing a number of first team players for the London derby.
Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and Emile Smith Rowe all miss out with injury.
While Arteta has been forced to drop Jorginho to the bench after he revealed the Italian hasn’t trained all week following his performance against Liverpool last weekend.
The Arsenal boss said via the club’s official X account: “Alex [Zinchenko] is not fit, Jorginho hasn’t trained almost all week as he’s been carrying an issue and it took him a while to recover on top of that.
“Gabi [Jesus] is not available in the squad and Emile turned his ankle in training so he’s not fit to play.”
Takehiro Tomiyasu is also missing from the matchday squad after returning from international duty with Japan at the Asia Cup.
Fans have been left nervy about the absences as Arsenal have already been on the wrong end of a defeat to West Ham TWICE this season.
One wrote: “We’ve literally got nothing on the bench!”
While another added: “We have a lot of injury prone players for my liking.”
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A third commented: “What happened to Smith Rowe again?!”
And a fourth simply asked: “Where is everyone?”
Famous Gooner Piers Morgan also weighed in on the team news and was fuming to see that Jorginho hadn’t made the starting XI.
He took to X to complain that the former Chelsea man should have started the game after his top showing against Liverpool.
He wrote: “[This is] My preferred front three, but benching Jorginho after his man of the match performance vs Liverpool is ridiculous.
“Arteta’s love for Havertz is a massive blind spot.”
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