Arsenal Team News: Wenger Confirms Double Injury Blow + Welbeck/Mustafi Latest

Arsenal will look to book their place in the knockout stages of the Europa League when we welcome Red Star Belgrade to the Emirates tomorrow night.

Ahead of the game, Arsene Wenger has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference today and he’s given reporters a team news and injury update.

The Gunners boss revealed some positive news on Sead Kolasinac as the defenders hip injury isn’t as bad as first feared and he still has a chance to take on Manchester City this weekend.

Kolasinac was forced off against Swansea at the weekend after aggravating his hip problem but the left-back will have a late fitness test to see if he’ll make the trip to the Etihad Stadium.

However, unfortunately David Ospina and Calum Chambers won’t be available for selection tomorrow night as they continue to work their way back to full fitness.

There were hopes that Ospina would recover from a groin injury in time to start against Belgrade in the Europa League but he’s still unavailable so the best he can hope for is being on the bench on Sunday.

Chambers has missed our last eight games in all competitions after suffering a hip injury during our League Cup win over Doncaster in September and the defender is still not ready to return.

Wenger also confirmed that Danny Welbeck is expected to be back in contention after the upcoming international break as he looks to overcome a groin injury.

Shkodran Mustafi is also pencilled in to make his comeback next month after missing the last five matches with a hamstring injury that he sustained while away with the German squad last month.

Wenger told Arsenal.com:

on Sead Kolasinac…
Today he was much better. He will have a test at the end of the week. He’s not ruled out of Sunday’s game yet, but of course he’s not involved on Thursday. It’s not as bad as we feared at the start.

on Calum Chambers and David Ospina…
Both of them are short. Ospina will maybe be available for Sunday and Calum Chambers is back in full training but not fit enough to play.

on Danny Welbeck and Shkodran Mustafi…
Welbeck and Mustafi are [returning] after the break.

Wenger is expected to rotate his squad once again tomorrow with all our first team regulars given a rest against Belgrade ahead of the trip to Man City on Sunday afternoon.