Arsenal’s injury crisis giving Mikel Arteta a pre-season headache

As Arsenal enter their first pre-season as defending Premier League champions in 22 years, they are aware of the fact that they will be the hunted this time around and not the hunters.

And while the players and Mikel Arteta himself will be relishing the prospect, with just under a month to go until the season-opener, he already has a headache to deal with. And that is the post-World Cup injury crisis involving three of his most important players.

Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, and William Saliba were three of the most crucial bedrocks in the Gunners’ pursuit of glory last season. But all three of them will be out in some capacity or another due to their injuries and their extent.

For starters, it has been reported that Saliba is set to be out for a “long time” after injuring his back in France’s semi-final defeat to Spain. It emerged after the game that the defender had actually played through that back problem throughout the World Cup. While surgery has been avoided as of now, managing back issues is a very delicate matter, and his rehab will be very crucial.

Bukayo Saka, meanwhile, was playing through the pain barrier himself after it emerged that he was dealing with an Achilles injury, which meant he could not start or finish games for England at the World Cup. While he eventually did play the entire bronze-medal match and scored a hat-trick against France, his fitness will again be a huge talking point given that Arsenal’s quest to bring in Morgan Rogers as potential cover was gazumped by their London rivals Chelsea.

Saka has played a lot of football over the last three seasons, and it is now slowly beginning to take its toll, with the Englishman having missed 15 games last season due to a multitude of fitness issues that have ranged from hamstring to hip to Achilles injuries. The sooner he is given some time off and rested adequately, the better.

Then we come to Rice. The 27-year-old is arguably one of the most durable players in the Premier League. But even he is now feeling the effects of what non-stop playing time can do. In a recent interview, he opened up about battling through neural hamstring pain, which is different from normal hamstring injuries. And by the latter stages of the World Cup, he was also playing through illness, which saw him get subbed off after the first half in the quarter-final against Norway, and despite him trying gamely in the semi-final against Argentina, he was unable to exert the same influence.

He is another player who is due a big rest, which is a big factor in Arsenal’s interest in Newcastle United midfielder Bruno Guimarães.

Three key players: one of them is ruled out for a substantial time, while the other two are teetering on the edge of a major injury if they continue to defy the pain barrier.

Arteta needs to find a way to keep them fit, either by dipping into the transfer market or finding a solution internally. How he goes about this could very well define the Gunners’ season before it even begins.