Declan Rice was forced off with a suspected calf injury during Arsenal’s 2-0 victory over Brentford in the Premier League on Wednesday night.
Mikel Merino opened the scoring for Arsenal with an excellent header from Ben White’s cross in the 11th minute before Bukayo Saka sealed the win for Mikel Arteta’s side with a goal in injury time.
Arsenal’s victory at the Emirates Stadium has restored their five-point lead at the top of the Premier League over second-placed Manchester City, who survived a late scare to beat Fulham 5-4 at Craven Cottage on Tuesday.
However, Arteta was dealt two injury concerns during his side’s latest win as both Cristhian Mosquera and Rice were substituted due to injury.
Mosquera, who started at centre-back alongside Piero Hincapie, was unable to continue after landing awkwardly and was replaced by Jurrien Timber.
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Rice, meanwhile, was forced off with seven minutes remaining and was seen pointing to his right calf in a conversation with Arsenal’s physio.
‘Obviously it’s never good news, Declan had to come off, we don’t know, we have to see tomorrow what he’s got,’ Arteta said after the game.
‘And Mosque is the other one that is out. Obviously we have big Gabi [Gabriel] and Willi [William Saliba] out as well so we have to adapt.
‘It’s been a theme this season but when I look at the players who haven’t been playing much, for example Ben White, the performance he had, or Martin [Odegaard] who has been out and puts 96 minutes under his belt straight away, Noni [Madueke] the same, Viktor [Gyokeres] has come in and now he’s getting some minutes as well, so very pleased to see that.’
When asked for more on Rice’s injury, Arteta said: ‘He could not carry on playing so we have to wait and see tomorrow what happens.
Arsenal fixtures in December
Aston Villa (A) | Premier League | December 6
Club Brugge (A) | Champions League | December 10
Wolves (H) | Premier League | December 13
Everton (A) | Premier League | December 20
Crystal Palace (H) | Carabao Cup | December 23
Brighton (H) | Premier League | December 27
Aston Vila (H) | Premier League | December 30
‘He can walk but he could not play.
‘They play a lot of minutes but as well when, now we play Wednesday night and we have to play Saturday morning as well. We can play minutes but please, give us a little more time to recover and to make the welfare of these players a little bit easier that would be great.’
Asked about the extent of Mosquera’s injury, Arteta replied: ‘We have to wait and see.
‘It’s part of the knee or ankle, we don’t know, he couldn’t tell us exactly how it was but he wasn’t able to continue.’
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