Mikel Arteta is concerned about Martin Ødegaard’s knee injury after the captain limped out of Arsenal’s 2-0 win over West Ham as they kept up the pressure on Liverpool at the top of the Premier League.
The Norwegian left the Emirates Stadium with his left knee in a brace after being taken off following a clash with Crysencio Summerville before the break. Declan Rice also had to be withdrawn in the second half with a back injury after he opened the scoring against his former club, with the England midfielder a doubt for the games against Wales on Thursday and Latvia a week on Tuesday.
But it was the condition of Ødegaard – who became the first player in Premier League history to be substituted in three successive matches before half-time, having previously been withdrawn against Leeds and Nottingham Forest because of a shoulder injury – that is worrying the Arsenal manager the most.
“He had a clash knee-to-knee, and immediately he was uncomfortable,” said Arteta, who marked his 300th game in charge with a comfortable victory. “I just spoke to him, he’s not positive about it, he’s got a brace on. We’ll have to wait and see from the doctors.
“We haven’t had him since the start of the season for one reason or the other, the shoulder twice and then this injury. We’ll find solutions, but obviously he’s our captain and is a player that gives us a completely different dimension with the things that he can do, especially in attacking. Let’s wait, and hopefully it’s not that bad.”
On Rice, he added: “He’s not all right because he asked me to come off, so that’s a shame. He had pain in his back and he could not carry on, which is something very unusual for Declan, so we’ll have to assess him and see how he is.”
Arsenal had lost their two previous meetings with West Ham at the Emirates but Bukayo Saka, who scored a penalty in the second half to make the points safe on his 200th Premier League appearance, said they were determined to make up for that. “It showed the progress we have made,” he said. “The last two seasons we slipped up at home against West Ham and we wanted to put that right today. We know the quality we have at the top end of the pitch and we know if we keep a clean sheet it is more than likely we will win the game.”
Nuno Espírito Santo was taking charge of his second match for West Ham since succeeding Graham Potter and the east London club remain in the relegation zone after this defeat. The former Forest manager acknowledged that there is plenty of work to do over the international break.
“This week has been a lot of new challenges, new things, a lot of changes,” he said. “I think the international break is going to be very useful in terms of settling down the mind and focus, but all the aspects of the game we have to address.”
