Former Chelsea defender David Luiz will miss out on a return to his former stamping ground on Wednesday when Arsenal travel to Stamford Bridge.
The Brazilian central defender had only recently returned from surgery on his knee, but is now enduring another spell on the sidelines.
Luiz made his return to the Arsenal side for last weekend's trip to Newcastle, but appeared to aggravate his hamstring just before the hour mark and was forced to limp out of action at St James’ Park.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta faced the media on Tuesday morning ahead of the game on Wednesday and said: “Well the situation with David [Luiz] is that he is not yet recovered, we will see how he does in the next few weeks.
“The rest are still in contention but we will have to see today how they come.”
Luiz initially joined Chelsea for €25million in 2011 from Benfica in a deal that saw Nemanja Matic move in the other direction.
Luiz was then sold to Paris St Germain for a £50 million transfer fee three years later in what then was a world record fee for a defender.
Two years later however, Luiz was back at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea paid £36million to bring him back to the capital, where he would stay for another three seasons before making the move to north London from west to join the Gunners. He is out of contract at the Emirates next month.
He made 248 appearances for Chelsea across his two spells at the club, winning the Premier League and Champions League once as well as scooping three FA Cup winners medals.
Luiz has had to battle a number of injury absences for the Gunners this season as Arteta’s side has limped along in the Premier League and dumped out of the Europa League semi final stage by Villarreal.
Arteta said of the London derby on Wednesday which sees third-place in the league take on ninth: “Well probably they’ve [Chelsea] been the best team in the league in the last few months, what Thomas has been able to do since he arrived has been exceptional.
“He put the team in two finals, the way the team is looking, how solid they are defensively as well, how composed and regular they have been in their performance has been excellent.”
