Arsenal boss Unai Emery is hopeful Shkodran Mustafi hasn’t suffered a fresh knock as he battles with growing injury woes at the back.
Mustafi was forced off after 79 minutes in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium with Konstantinos Mavropanos, fit again after a troublesome groin injury, coming onto replace him.
Laurent Koscielny was back in the Gunners backline but with Sokratis Papastathopoulos sidelined with an ankle injury and Rob Holding out for the rest of the season, Emery is short of senior options at the back.
I think he's okay also,” Emery said of the German defender.
“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."
Arsenal travel to the Premier League’s bottom side Huddersfield next weekend before the first leg of their Europa League last 32 clash against BATE Borisov.
Emery is hopeful his defender will be available for those games.
No. 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.
