Mikel Arteta has provided an update on the fitness of Ben White, Jurrien Timber and Cristhian Mosquera ahead of our trip to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland on Saturday.
While Cristhian and Jurrien are looking to work their way back into the side after respective spells on the sidelines, Ben was seen limping towards the end of our 1-0 win over Napoli on Wednesday night.
But the boss confirmed the England defender is “fine” and will be in contention to feature in Saturday’s game.
Cristhian and Timber meanwhile are nearing returns having missed out on our first Champions League game of the season.
“[Cristhian’s] doing really well,” the boss said at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday, “let’s see if he can get [back] for this game or the next one.
“[With Jurrien], let’s see. We have another training session. He’s been doing really well, he’s been training with us now for a few days, and he looks in good shape.”
While we await the return of some of our defenders, we’ve enjoyed a full compliment of attacking players in the early stages of the season.
New signing Christos Tzolis has hit the ground running in north London, and Mikel feels that the combinations he’s forming with other members of our squad, such as the link up he’s established with Martin Odegaard, will benefit us as the season goes on.
“Hopefully those relationships are great between all the players,” the boss said, “that’s what we try to develop.
“There is certainly a start there, and let’s see where we have a bigger example, how this develops, but it’s a really good sign.”