Arsenal loanee Reiss Nelson 's lack of playing time is "difficult to explain," according to his manager while on loan at Feyenoord.
The 21-year-old made just nine appearances in all competitions last season and has moved to the Netherlands in search of regular first-team football.
Nelson joined the Eredivisie outfit on transfer deadline day and will be hoping to replicate the form he showed when he made a temporary move to Hoffenheim for the 2018-19 campaign.
Having featured in pre-season, the England youth international appeared as a substitute in the Gunners' shock 2-0 defeat to Brentford in their first match of the Premier League term.
But he failed to convince Arteta he was worth a place in his side on a regular basis and went out on loan.
Arne Slot left the winger out of his squad for their Europa Conference League game against Maccabi Haifa on Tuesday and has explained his absence.
"Nelson had participated in almost all training sessions at Arsenal, but he experiences the training sessions here as a bit more spicy," the Feyenoord boss said.
"He ran into an overload injury and so he is not here. Whether he will make it to PSV remains to be seen."
Does Nelson have a future at Arsenal? Give us your verdict here.
The wide man will now miss that match against the league leaders and Slot has once again clarified why.
"No, he is not there, it is quite difficult to explain. I have asked the medical staff if that is easy, but that does not seem to be easy," then 43-year-old said.
"The bottom line is that he is in good condition, but that is different from playing matches and a certain kind of training.
"At Arsenal, he was part of the selection, but there they did a lot of eleven-on-eleven and he belonged to the team that had to imitate the opponent. Then you have to walk a bit like the coach wants you to walk.
He added: "He has not played any matches. The intensity of our exercises may have happened there, but he was not there."
Arteta has reposed in his pre-match press conference ahead of Arsenal's trip to Bunrley on Saturday.
"First of all I think that his words were a little bit taken out of context," the Spaniard began.
"What I can say is that we have a brilliant company called STATsports that for the last 10 or 12 years has measured intensity. Since that happened we have in the last three years the highest intensity training sessions ever done."
"it is about volume. This is something different, that’s why we have an incredible team, a sports science team, that I fully trust because we have great personnel there and they look after that all the time.
The Gunners manager added: "Hopefully Reiss is going to be fit and no more injuries and he can do well because he is a top talent."
