Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has revealed a fresh injury blow for the club with the news that Emile Smith Rowe has had to miss out in today’s visit to West Ham United.
The Gunners haven’t always used Smith Rowe as a starter when he’s been available, but it’s also fair to say that injuries have held him back a lot in recent times and prevented him from getting enough of a run of games together to truly make his mark on this side.
Arsenal fans will no doubt be keen to see Smith Rowe put these issues behind him, but Arteta has once again had to give them bad news as he discussed the England international’s latest knock before today’s game at the London Stadium.
Arsenal are 1-0 up against West Ham at the time of writing, but they’ve gone into today’s game without a host of big names, with Smith Rowe joining Gabriel Jesus and Thomas Partey as being out of contention, while Jorginho was also dropped to the bench due to a fitness concern.
Discussing Smith Rowe, Arteta said, as quoted by the Metro: “Yeah, Emile turned his ankle in training. It was too early for Gabi and he could not recover.
“Jorgi has been struggling after 90 minutes after a long time as well, so we had quite a lot of issues in the week.”
Arsenal look like they could be genuine title challengers this season as long as they keep everyone fit, but this has been a recurring theme for them, with Partey barely playing this season, Jesus missing large chunks of last year and this, while Jurrien Timber has also only managed one league game since joining from Ajax last summer.