Arsenal provide update on Lacazette, Bellerin & Tierney ahead of Frankfurt trip

Arsenal will begin their Europa League group stage campaign with a tricky trip to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday evening. 

Ahead of the game, the club have issued a team news and injury update on Arsenal.com including the latest on the fitness of Alexandre Lacazette, Hector Bellerin, Kieran Tierney and Dinos Mavropanos.

Lacazette missed Sunday afternoon’s frustrating 2-2 draw with Watford at Vicarage Road after aggravating a niggling ankle injury against Tottenham before the recent international break.

The Frenchman is continuing his rehabilitation and is expected back in action at some point in October so Lacazette will obviously miss tomorrow’s trip to Germany to face Frankfurt.

Bellerin has returned to full training recently after recovering from a serious knee ligament injury that he sustained back in January. Unai Emery suggested he will allow Bellerin to build-up his match fitness with the Arsenal U23s before he’ll be considered for selection so I don’t expect we’ll see him in the first team until next month.

Tierney has also resumed full training after overcoming a groin injury that he was nursing when he joined the club from Celtic on deadline day last month. However, Emery will also not rush the defender back too soon so it’s highly unlikely he’ll be involved against Frankfurt tomorrow.

The only other injury concern is Mavropanos and the centre-back stepped-up his return from injury with a run-out with the U23s at the weekend having recently returned to full training. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be included in the travelling squad for the Frankfurt game but I think he’ll play for the U23s at least one more time before Emery will consider him for first team duty.

The update on Arsenal.com said:

Alex Lacazette
Left ankle. Alex continues to rehabilitate the injury to his left ankle and is likely to be back in action in October.

Dinos Mavropanos
Now back in full training with the first-team squad. Played 67 minutes with the Under-23s against Leicester City at Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

Hector Bellerin
Now back in full training with the first-team squad.

Kieran Tierney
Now back in full training with the first-team squad.

Emery is expected to make a number of changes to his starting eleven tomorrow night with the likes of Emi Martinez, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Lucas Torreira, Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli pushing for starts.