Mikel Arteta claims he is living an “absolute nightmare” with Arsenal‘s injury list of three players, after more dropped points in Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Chelsea.
It has been an objectively poor start to the season for Arsenal, but not for the reasons their manager repeatedly claims.
While Arteta has blamed a so-called injury crisis for their lack of consistency, it is more so the Spaniard’s conservative tactics that have held them back.
The paranoia around the Emirates certainly doesn’t help their own supporters, with Arteta fuelling this further after Sunday’s draw with Chelsea.
Two more points dropped – along with Liverpool’s own 2-0 win over Aston Villa – leaves Arsenal nine points adrift of the leader, sitting fourth and level on points with Chelsea.
“There’s nothing that we can change today about that,” he told reporters post-match when asked if there’s still a chance of closing the gap.
“What I am just praying is that after the international break I have the team fully equipped physically, that they are available and they are fit.
“Because it’s been an absolute nightmare for eight weeks, patch after patch, issue after issue – not only the ones that are not able to play, the ones that are able to play only for certain days.
“So I’m just asking that, because the team, the desire that they have and how much we wanted this, there’s just no question about that.
“It’s going to come, we just need that on our side to be able to be more consistent.”
Arsenal picked up two more issues on Sunday as both Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka were forced off late on, with Arteta putting pressure on Lee Carsley to omit the pair from his England squad.
Their only other absentees at the weekend were defenders Riccardo Calafiori, Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu, while Raheem Sterling was ineligible to play against his parent club.
Claims that Rice, Mikel Merino and Kai Havertz could all miss out were dispelled as Rice and Havertz started and Merino came off the bench, while Martin Odegaard made his first start back from injury too.
If that is an “absolute nightmare,” Arteta would be minded to consider Liverpool being without Alisson, Diogo Jota, Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa, while Man City are missing Rodri, John Stones, Ruben Dias, Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku.
