Arsenal return to Premier League action against Leeds United on 10 October. The game comes after their first league defeat of the season, a 3-0 loss at Brighton. Mikel Arteta now faces fresh concerns over his squad’s fitness.
The biggest worry is a Christos Tzolis Arsenal injury scare. Tzolis picked up a hamstring problem while on international duty with Greece. His Greece coach, Ivan Jovanovic, has explained why he pulled the forward off the pitch.
Tzolis injured on international duty
Jovanovic was asked directly about the substitution. He gave a blunt answer.
“How do I handle it? You tell me? I’m his coach, I tell him to go out and he says, ‘I’m not going out.'”
The coach said Tzolis’s own reaction told him something was wrong.
“I told him to get out, because I suspected that he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t felt something. We don’t know how big the damage is today, but I hoped it was just a twitch, something temporary,” Jovanovic said.
Asked to sum up his thinking, he kept it simple.
“First and foremost I wanted to protect the player,” Jovanovic added, in comments carried by the original report. The timing was unlucky. Tzolis had scored in the win over Serbia in Belgrade. He then set up the winner against Germany in his previous game for Greece.
How does Tzolis injury shape Arteta’s plans
Arteta already had plenty to think about after the Brighton defeat, Arsenal’s first league loss of the season. The Christos Tzolis Arsenal situation adds one more fitness concern just as October gets busy. Arsenal have managed squad rotation carefully in recent weeks. That approach was clear in the changes made for the Carabao Cup, set out in our Carabao Cup line-up report.
A separate story from the summer has also resurfaced. Arsenal were interested in Bournemouth striker Eli Junior Kroupi before the season began. That interest stopped when he fractured a metatarsal in pre-season. Kroupi had surgery in July and has not played for Bournemouth all season. His situation remains unresolved just as Arsenal weigh up their own attacking options.
What’s next for Arsenal
Arsenal’s next task is the trip to face Leeds United on 10 October. Arteta is expected to assess Tzolis’s hamstring before then. According to secondary reporting around the squad, Tzolis could be out for 15 to 20 days. However, neither Arsenal nor Greece have confirmed that timeframe.
Supporters following squad depth elsewhere can read our VAR verdict from recent weeks. Arteta is now managing a squad stretched by both the Brighton defeat and the Tzolis injury blow.
Comments.
Loading comments…