'Felt something' - Mikel Arteta issues injury update after fresh scare during Olympiacos victory
Arsenal had an injury scare during their Champions League win over Olympiacos.
Arsenal suffered an injury scare during their Champions League win over Olympiacos on Wednesday night. The Gunners came out on top thanks to goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka, but the killer goal did not arrive until stoppage time, with David Raya having to pull off a big save to deny the visitors.
Mikel Arteta’s men were pretty dominant, though, and their reward is a second win from as many games to kick off the Champions League campaign, with tricky games with Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich still to come in this phase of the competition.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though, with Arsenal suffering an injury scare when Gabriel Magalhaes was forced of having recently dealt with an injury issue. Asked after the game for an update, Arteta gave a positive update.
“Yeah, I think he's going to be OK,” said the Spaniard. “He felt something, I think it was a kick, I'm not sure, in the first half, and he was a bit uncomfortable, and towards the second half he was there. He could carry on, but we decided not to take any risks because he's played a lot of games, he's coming from a long-term injury as well, and we need to look after him.”
In the wake of that scare, Arteta was asked about the importance of rotating players in a busy schedule. He added: “Yes, especially with Bukayo (Saka) because he comes from a long-term injury, he played 45, 60, 70 minutes in a really short period, and today it was more risky, so we decided to keep him.
“Gabby (Martinelli) did really well I think on the right as well and with Declan (Rice) because he had some incredible outputs three days ago, he's played so many games, he's going to have to play so many games as well, and it's great to have someone like Mikel come in and perform really well and when we need a different profile, bring him in on the pitch.”
‘Always complicated’
Speaking about the game in general terms, Arteta highlighted the value of the win because of the fact the Champions League is so difficult. “Well, very happy, obviously winning the Champions League is always very complicated, keeping another clean sheet, we make something like 11 in 14 games, which is remarkable from the boys,” he said.
“I think we started the game really well, I think we looked a real threat, really dynamic, really playing forwards around a lot of threats. Generally to the goal another two or three big chances and we don't put them away in this competition. You have to be careful, the first arrival David had to make an incredible save to deny the goal, which you need in this competition as well. And after that we had moments of a lot of dominance as you said, and some others that without control and dominating in a direct play we got a little bit deeper, and every time they put balls in the box with the crosses, it's a team that is very, very dangerous.
“At the end, again, missed two big chances, but at the end found a way with Bukayo to score a goal and breathe a little bit in the first few minutes because it's a team that ended the game really well, I think they won five already this season in the last few minutes, and we discussed that they were going to keep believing until the end, and they made it difficult until the end.”
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