Bukayo Saka is still a serious doubt for Arsenal’s matchup with Brighton in the Premier League on Saturday.
The 22-year-old was forced off with a muscle injury during Sunday’s goalless draw with Manchester City, thus he was not included in the squad for Arsenal’s 2-0 victory against Luton Town on Wednesday night.
Saka will have a late fitness test during the team’s last practice before traveling to Brighton for Saturday night’s kickoff, Mikel Arteta disclosed on Friday morning.
“After our training session in a few hours, we will know,” Arteta remarked. “We will be able to determine his suitability.”
Brighton would have been full of confidence having knocked us out of the League Cup just a few weeks prior, but no sooner had referee Anthony Taylor blown his whistle to start the game, Arsenal were 1-0 up through Bukayo Saka. Martin Odegaard and Eddie Nketiah were next to score giving us a 3-0 lead. Kaoru Mitoma pulled one back for the home team, but by the time they scored a second, Gabriel Martinelli had already scored our fourth. A superb result which took us 7 points clear of Man City who’d drawn 1-1 with Everton earlier in the day.
After the game, Mikel Arteta said that the gap at the top of the table “means nothing” if Arsenal slip up, and “our only focus is again to improve”. He was right of course as his team did slip up and around this time of the season.
Draws at Anfield and The London Stadium, both after being 2-0 up, was followed by a 3-3 draw against relegation threatened Southampton at The Emirates Stadium. The latter was after being 2-0 down but that meant we’d dropped six points so when City thumped us a week later, our League title hopes had been smashed to pieces in April.
April is full of tough fixtures, tonight against Brighton being no exception. In fact between now and the end of season is tough let alone April with many fixtures in a relatively short period of time between all of them. Still, only one fixture matters today and that’s tonight’s.
I’ve not seen much of Brighton this season but De Zerbi is a good coach who’ll have his players organised and ready to fight for all three points. They’re still chasing down a top 6/7 finish to secure European football again next season which is remarkable really considering the players they sold in the summer but they’re smart. Brighton sell for big money and then replace those who’ve departed for less. I bet they’re having a right old laugh about Moises Caicedo….
