Arsenal lost ground in the race for a top-four finish and dropped to sixth in the Premier League on Sunday as they were beaten 3-1 by defending champions Manchester City at Etihad Stadium.
While Laurent Koscielny quickly restored parity for the Gunners after Sergio Aguero had scored inside one minute, the latter was in typically scintilating form and notched his 14th City hat-trick as Unai Emery was left dealing with yet more defensive injury issues.
Already without Sokratis Papastathopoulos (ankle) and long-term absentee Rob Holding in addition to Hector Bellerin and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Arsenal lost the services of Shkodran Mustafi with 11 minutes remaining of the contest after the German international appeared to sustain a back injury.
Konstantinos Mavropanos, who missed the first five months of the season, made his first senior appearance this term in place of Mustafi and would presumably be called upon to deputise again in the top-flight meeting with Huddersfield next weekend if his fellow centre-back is ruled out.
However, Emery - who has been forced to select Nacho Monreal and even Granit Xhaka as makeshift central defenders this season - seemed optimistic that Mustafi would be ready for the trip to the John Smith's Stadium.
"I think he's okay also,” he said.
“He's been having problems all this week and last week. Dinos Mavrapanos is training with us also and is good to start his first 20 minutes today and help us."
He added: "I think last week he is with some problems also in his head and today, when in the last 20 minutes he was also with some problems, I decided to give Mavropanos 20 minutes.
"I hope it is not a problem with Mustafi for this week and the next match."
That is good news for Arsenal as they follow their meeting with Huddersfield with a Europa League last-32 tie against BATE Borisov of Ukraine.
Scroll through the gallery above for the latest injury news ahead of the Huddersfield clash...
