Arsenal have been left sweating on the fitness of England defender Esri Konsa ahead of Saturday’s visit of Hull City to the Emirates Stadium.
Konsa complained of a knee issue in the first half of the Gunners’ 2-1 win at Slavia Prague in the Champions League on Wednesday night, and was eventually withdrawn just after the hour mark to be replaced by Christian Mosquera.
The Gunners were boosted by the return of French international William Saliba, with the World Cup star an unused substitute in Prague as he made his return from a back problem that has seen him miss the opening weeks of the new Premier League campaign.
Saliba could make his long-awaited return against City should Konsa not be fit enough to take his place in Mikel Arteta’s side, while Mosquera would also provide adequate cover.
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“Obviously he’s playing a lot. He’s played so many games in the last few weeks, and he had some issues, and we decided to take him off,” Arteta told Football.London in Prague.
Arsenal were 2-0 up at the break thanks to goals from Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyokeres, but lost their way in the second half and were pegged back late on, with the hosts threatening to stage another late show, but Arteta’s men held firm to make it three wins and a draw from their opening four games in the competition.
“Yeah, well, first of all, you have to value the fact that it’s very difficult to win away from home,” the Spaniard continued. “We’ve done it against a really tough opponent, as we expected. Two very different halves. The first one, where we played at a really high level in terms of tempo, intensity, quality and clarity in what we had to do and what the game was demanding. And they were very efficient. Scored two goals; it should have been three, four or five. We didn’t make that gap. And at half-time, the message was clear. There’s still a lot to do in this game. Because it’s a team that has huge spirit, huge conviction.
“And you give them something, they will grab it. And right from the beginning, we were extremely far from our standards in everything that we have to do, in every basic, in every concept, and in everything that we discussed to avoid the game that we played in the second half. So, yeah, very far from the standards that we expect from each other. We found a way to, at the end, fall into that result and win the game.”
Owing to the nature of the second-half display from Arsenal, Declan Rice played the full 90-plus minutes amid concerns over his fitness, though Arteta felt that wasn’t an issue for the England star.
“Well, the game required it, and he did. He was as well rested against Fleetwood. So he had a very good week to recover. It’s the second one that I play, not the fifth one. So we expect our players to be able to do that. I think he had some very good moments.”
Arsenal will certainly be without the injured Bukayo Saka and Max Dowman, who was sent off against Fleetwood Town in the EFL Cup and has his appeal against a three-game domestic ban thrown out by the FA.
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