Arsenal plagued by injuries in risky loop yet Arteta stands by training regime

Mikel Arteta stood firm on Arsenal's training practices amid their injury woes, even as he conceded that the squad faces a precarious predicament regarding player fitness.

Leandro Trossard stayed behind in England rather than joining the trip to Belgium for Arsenal's Champions League group stage encounter against Club Brugge on Wednesday, following an injury picked up in the Premier League loss to Aston Villa on Saturday.

Defenders William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, and Cristhian Mosquera remain unavailable, with forward Kai Havertz still sidelined and midfielder Declan Rice set to sit out the Brugge match owing to illness.

Compounding Arteta's challenges, talented 15 year old winger Max Dowman picked up an ankle knock in a private friendly match on Saturday.

Dowman has been removed from Arsenal's Champions League roster, which means he is ineligible to feature in the tournament until the knockout rounds.

Since the beginning of the previous season, Arsenal have dealt with 95 injuries in total, 28 of which have occurred this campaign.

However, when questioned about whether he is overworking his squad during sessions, Arteta responded: No, because we don't have time to train.

Today we've done 20 minutes, so surely it's not because we overtrained the players.

But obviously when you are missing players, you are loading other players and there is a consequence to that, and it's a really dangerous circle.

Last season's absences of key figures like Havertz, Bukayo Saka, and Martin Odegaard played a major role in Arsenal's inability to challenge Liverpool effectively in the Premier League title contest.

Even with this recent surge in injuries, Arsenal hold the summit of the Premier League table and remain well positioned to advance to the Champions League knockout phase.

Arteta emphasised that the club's coaching team and medical personnel are continually monitoring player wellbeing to help mitigate the injury concerns.

You have to separate the kind of injuries. Some of them have been long term, and some have been acute injuries, Arteta explained, reflecting on the end of Arsenal's 18 game unbeaten streak across all competitions during the Villa defeat last weekend.

It's something that we are constantly looking at. We have played a lot of games with a lot of players missing and that puts a lot of stress, and then you get more injuries.

Providing a welcome lift for Arteta, Gabriel Jesus might return for his first outing for Arsenal in 332 days when they face Brugge.

The Brazilian forward has been out since damaging his left knee's anterior cruciate ligament during Arsenal's FA Cup third round loss to Manchester United back in January.