Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka could be fit for Arsenal’s Champions League game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old missed Arsenal’s 2-0n defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday with manager Mikel Arteta not wanting to take any risks with one of his key players.
Saka picked up a hamstring issue during England’s 2-1 defeat by Greece in the Nations League on September 10.
Captain Martin Odegaard has missed eight games since picking up an ankle injury against Austria for Norway in the September international break. The Champions League game on Tuesday will come too early, but the 25-year-old is not far from a return.
Arteta said on the pair: “They are closer and both progressing really well. Martin is still not fit. With Bukayo, let’s see how he feels today and (after) the training session we have later on.”
Despite positive comments ahead of the Premier League game against Bournemouth from Arteta, Saka was left out for the 2-0 defeat on the south coast on Saturday evening.
Arteta explained that the winger “didn’t have the right feeling” and “there was no point pushing him” ahead of a run of seven games in three weeks, which includes the visit of Premier League leaders Liverpool, a trip to Inter Milan and an away fixture at Chelsea.
Arsenal have contended with a number of injury problems during the 2024-25 campaign. In addition to Saka and Odegaard, Ben White, Gabriel Martinelli, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Jurrien Timber were all doubts ahead of the Bournemouth defeat.
Timber missed the trip to the Vitality Stadium with a muscular injury but White and Martinelli did feature while Zinchenko was an unused substitute.
When asked about the potential of Timber returning for the game on Tuesday, Arteta said: “It’s going to be close. We have to see how he deals with training with the whole group because he has not done that yet. But he will be pretty close hopefully.”
Arsenal have four points from their opening two games of their Champions League campaign following the draw away at Atalanta on September 19 with a home win over Paris Saint-Germain on October 1.
(Julian Finney/Getty Images)
