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Arsenal dealt huge fresh double fitness blow, 6 players will now miss Brentford trip

By mac14 on August 13, 2021

It’s a new season but the same old problems for Arsenal as according to The Athletic, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette will miss tonight’s Premier League opener at Brentford due to illness.

Aubameyang has featured heavily in pre-season – playing in all six games – and he was fully expected to start when we travel to the Brentford Community Stadium for tonight’s 8pm kick off.

Lacazette was also likely to start against Brentford in Arsenal’s season opener as the Frenchman has also been looking sharp in pre-season having enjoyed a full break due to his absence from the French Euro 2020 squad this summer.

However, Arsenal have been dealt a huge double blow as The Athletic claims that Auba and Laca have both been ruled out of Arsenal’s game tonight due to illness.

With Eddie Nketiah already out due to an ankle injury that he picked up in pre-season, it leaves Mikel Arteta short of options up front. Gabriel Martinelli has only recently returned to training following his exploits with Brazil at the Olympics so he’s not going to be fully match fit yet.

Arteta may be forced to start Martinelli though as his only other option would be to hand Folarin Balogun his full Premier League debut. I’m excited to see how Balogun develops this season but it would be a huge ask of the youngster for him to start Arsenal’s opening game.

Bukayo Saka is another player who may be short of fitness to start after arriving back late from England duty so Arsenal really are stretched in attack. It’s a shocking state to be in as we prepare to kick off the new campaign.

We also have issues in midfield as Thomas Partey has been ruled out for a few weeks with an ankle injury while we’re short of centre-backs too with Gabriel out for at least 3 weeks with a knee injury and Rob Holding short of fitness.

So Arsenal are set to be without at least 6 first team players for our Premier League opener against Brentford. A new season may be upon us, but it looks like injury and fitness issues are already hampering Arsenal’s progress.

Let’s pray we manage to get a win at Brentford tonight as with Chelsea and Man City coming up next in the league, we desperately need to get three points on the board.