The 9 players that could miss Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest this weekend

Arsenal look to get back to winning ways in the Premier League this weekend with the visit of Nottingham Forest to the Emirates Stadium in a rare Saturday 3 pm kick-off for the Gunners.

Ahead of the current campaign, a home clash against Forest may have looked exactly the fixture Mikel Arteta could want to find a first top flight win since beating Southampton at the start of October. However, Nuno Espirito Santo has got his team purring so far this term.

Nottingham Forest sit level on points with Arsenal with both sides having managed five wins, four draws and two losses this season. The visitors are also in need of a bounceback, having been defeated 3-1 by Newcastle United at The City Ground before the international break.

Once again, Arteta is not helped in his quest to slingshot his side back into the title race by a list of injuries to first team stars. The Spaniard will have to work around the niggles picking his starting XI to line up against Nottingham Forest this weekend.

Mikel Arteta runs through Arsenal team news

Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice both withdrew from the England squad over the international break but are in contention for a return, although only took part in a 'first partial session' on Friday so do remain doubts.

Meanwhile, Ben White will be a longer term absentee for Arsenal. The defender underwent a "minor surgical procedure" on his knee during the break and will be out for 'months'.

Arteta said: "It’s been different kind of struggles, it’s never been the same thing, but we had to make a decision in the last few weeks, unfortunately. We know that Ben is going to push every boundary but it got to a point where we had to protect the player and we decided to do the surgery.

"He agreed with that, and obviously it will keep him out for a few months. We have to see how he reacts post-surgery, I don't expect him to be out for half a season or year but I cannot tell you exactly [how long]."

It's nothing short of a crisis when it comes to the fitness of full-backs for the Gunners. Riccardo Calafiori hasn't played since the Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk but Arteta said that his 'rehab is going really well'. He added: "He was able to do certain things last week with the physios, and trained on the pitch this week with us and today, so he will be in the squad."

Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu are both long term absentees with injury at full-back. Arteta said: "Kieran - not yet. He had a couple of sessions with the team but is not ready yet to be with the team, and Tomiyasu is going to be out as well for a bit."

Nuno Espirito Santo provides Nottingham Forest injury update

Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest arrive in London with a few fitness worries of their own. Danilo has a broken ankle and Ibrahim Sangare has a hamstring problem which will rule both of those stars out.

Nuno said: "Those two are definitely out and cannot be involved. We have some other situations to manage and decide. We still have [Ramon] Sosa to arrive, because he plays later [for Paraguay]. The rest of them are here and, for now, okay…

“We are just managing some players and some situations. As we mentioned before, we took the chance of the international break to recover some players. Let’s wait and see if they improve.”