Mikel Arteta reveals ANOTHER injury as key Arsenal star pulled out of training after suffering knock against Aston Villa
Arsenal rising star Myles Lewis-Skelly has been added to the club’s ever-growing injury list as Mikel Arteta revealed the reason behind the youngsters Champions League omission.
The versatile 18-year-old has been a rare plus point amidst Arsenal’s current injury crisis that has seen a host of key defenders injured during a hectic run of fixtures.
Lewis-Skelly had been handed starting minutes by Arteta in the wake of Riccardo Calafiori, Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu sitting out injured and has started the club’s last two previous Premier League matches.
However, Arteta revealed Lewis-Skelly was unable to finish training on Tuesday after jarring his knee in the thrilling 2-2 draw against Aston Villa at the weekend.
Oleksandr Zinchenko was recalled to Arsenal’s starting line-up in Lewis-Skelly’s absence for the visit of Dinamo Zagreb as Arteta confirmed another destabilising injury complaint.
Explaining Lewis-Skelly’s absence, the Gunners boss told TNT Sports: ‘He could not finish the training session yesterday [Tuesday] unfortunately.
Mikel Arteta has revealed another Arsenal star has suffered an injury after pulling out of training
Arsenal rising star Myles Lewis-Skelly (left) has been added to the club’s ever-growing injury list
‘He had an incident during the match against Aston Villa and he wasn’t feeling right yesterday so he could not finish the session,’ added the Spaniard.
Lewis-Skelly had initially been pictured smiling during the problematic training session before pulling up and heading back indoors for further assessment.
However, the England Under-19 international did make the trip to the Emirates for the Champions League despite not being available for selection and watched on from the stands.
Further scans and assessments are now set to take place on Thursday to discover the severity of Lewis-Skelly’s complaint with supporters hoping it won’t be a long-term problem.
Riccardo Calafiori also suffered a problem in training on Tuesday but was named amongst the Arsenal bench to face Zagreb
The attacking full-back has made 16 appearances in all competitions for the first-team this season as Arsenal attempt to challenge Liverpool for the Premier League lead.
Meanwhile, it was similar circumstances for Calafiori who has missed the last three matches with a muscle complaint and was hoping to be included against Zagreb.
Explaining the Italian only being named on the bench, Arteta continued: ‘The same with Ricci as well, he only trained 20 minutes.
‘Adapt again like we have done all season and have some freshness in the team which I think is important as well.’
